The fest has come under fire for chronic under-representation of women in its competition lineup, with just two of 21 films this year from female directors.
That ratio of female-to-male directors in the main competition — 9.5 percent against 90.5 percent — is the lowest of any of the major film festivals. Forty-six percent of competition films at Sundance this year were directed by women, 40 percent of Berlin's 2019 competition lineup featured female helmers, and Toronto's ratio, across its entire selection, will be 74 percent male to 36 percent female this year.
The two-hour event was organized by the activist group Women in Film, Television & Media Italia and Dissenso Comune, Italy’s answer to the #MeToo movement, along with European film funding body Eurimages and Italian film funding body Mibac. "We can wonder if we can do better," Barbera said, but added "we think the main criteria is the quality of films, we don't want to be indulgent with respect to the gender of directors."
Baratta argued that Venice had made progress and said he "totally rejected" the idea that the festival should be accused of bias.
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