Los Angeles, Sep 2 (IANS) Hollywood actress-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who serves as the jury head for the upcoming edition of the Venice Film Festival, has spoken up about the inherently political nature of cinema as a medium.
The actress-director attended the press conference for the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday. Given the current state of wars and conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and west Asia, and the unrest in the United States, Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is the jury president, was asked whether cinema should be political.
Responding to the same, she said, “OK. May as well get into it”. She shared that movies are “fundamentally, unavoidably political”.
She went on, “Look, we could say, how are we possibly here talking about movies right now when the world is in a state of emergency? To me, the answer has something to do with empathy. I think that film allows an opening into an opportunity to find empathy inside of ourselves”.
She further mentioned, “I think we can challenge ourselves to hear stories about the most corrupt, most perverse people because it opens up the opportunity to find empathy for those people. I am here open. I am here curious”.
She was also asked about the lack of female directors in this year’s competition lineup. Only one film has made it for the Golden Lion, the drama ‘Woman Unknown’ by Danish-Egyptian director May El-Toukhysolely, was solely helmed by a woman. “I guess it’s finally become clear that men make better movies than women do”, she said.
“I will answer you seriously. There’s a systemic problem. It’s harder for women to get films financed. Could it be possible that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art? Who decides what’s good? Who decides what is valuable?”, she added.
–IANS
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