Cannes is making real progress on gender parity—female-directed films account for 34% of the entire selection and 38% in short films, up from just one female director in competition back in 2012. The festival signed Le Collectif 50/50's equality charter back in 2018, ahead of most major institutions.
The Thelma & Louise poster choice looks deeply tone-deaf when only five of 22 Palme d'Or contenders are directed by women. Sources say Frémaux came to the press conference with prepared notes on gender parity—a sign someone internally flagged this was coming. The festival's defense that it wasn't trying to 'look feminist' didn't exactly land smoothly.
The Academy unveiled new Oscar eligibility rules just days before Cannes opened, allowing non-English language films to qualify for Best International Feature by winning top prizes at qualifying festivals including Cannes. Only 5 of 22 films in competition are directed by women this year, down from 7 in 2025.
Frémaux remains one of cinema's most powerful gatekeepers, and his answers revealed both diplomatic skill and defensive blind spots—especially on gender parity. The Oscar rule changes, however, position Cannes as more influential than ever.
Cannes Film Festival Director Thierry Frémaux faced the press on Monday for his traditional pre-festival briefing, and let's just say the questions weren't gentle. In a wide-ranging session that touched on everything from artificial intelligence to new Academy Award rules to the festival's contentious poster choice, Frémaux navigated some genuinely thorny territory with the practiced ease of someone who's been doing this for decades. The biggest industry news coming out of Cannes this year might actually originate at the Oscars.
Just days before the festival opened its doors, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled sweeping changes to eligibility rules for the Best International Feature Film category. Under the new framework, non-English language films can now qualify by winning top prizes at qualifying festivals including Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, or Venice—no country submission required. Frémaux welcomed the changes enthusiastically, pointing out that 19 nominations at this year's Oscars went to films that screened at Cannes.
"When people say that America is turning inward, it's not true," he said. "Hollywood is opening up to the international scene, opening up to universality." The new rules also avoid awkward situations like Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident running as France's entry rather than Iran's—given Panahi's anti-government stance makes him unlikely to ever be Tehran's official pick. Frémaux downplayed concerns that juries might be swayed toward awarding the Palme d'Or to dissident filmmakers who would benefit from the Oscar boost, noting that Asghar Farhadi and Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev are both in competition this year.
The gender parity question proved stickier. French equality group Le Collectif 50/50—which formed in the wake of the MeToo movement—has been criticizing Cannes for featuring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon from the 1991 road movie Thelma & Louise on this year's official poster, accusing the festival of "feminist washing." When pressed by an AFP journalist on why only 23% of main competition contenders are women while Berlin achieved near-parity with nine of 22 Golden Bear nominees directed by women, Frémaux pulled out his prepared notes.
"At no moment would we have chosen an image of Geena Davis or Susan Sarandon or Ridley Scott's film for the poster to make ourselves look feminist," he said firmly. The festival director acknowledged that Cannes's track record had been questionable—pointing to 2012 when zero female directors made it into competition—but insisted real progress was being made. He noted that 28% of submissions this year were by women, while female-directed films account for 34% of the entire selection and 38% in short films.
"Today we're seeing more and more women directors coming into cinema," Frémaux said. "The figures show it's moving forward, but also that it's slow, that it's not enough." He promised fresh dialogue with interested parties going forward while criticizing negative social media campaigns as counterproductive. Frémaux also weighed in on the controversy that plagued this year's Berlin Film Festival, where jury president Wim Wenders sparked backlash by suggesting filmmakers should "stay out of politics." The Cannes chief came to his colleague's defense.
"I would like to pay tribute to Wim Wenders because I think he was subjected to criticisms that weren't really justified," Frémaux said. "I understood what he wanted to say, but I think people didn't want to understand what he was saying." According to Frémaux, Wenders meant that politics should be expressed through the screen itself—echoing Cannes's own philosophy that political questions are primarily about artists' voices and the work being shown.
As for whether filmmakers in competition will face politically charged questioning this year? "We're in a world partly at war, a world in a fragile state," Frémaux observed. "We don't want to add to the confusion with our analysis of what's going on." He reiterated his belief that cinema is ultimately "an instrument of peace, even when calling for rebellion and freedom." On artificial intelligence—a topic that's increasingly unavoidable in Hollywood—Frémaux offered a characteristically philosophical take.
"Artificial intelligence is what the electric bicycle is to the bicycle," he said. "To ride an electric bicycle, you need to know how to ride a bike." The Cannes chief suggested filmmakers must understand AI while remaining vigilant, and noted that the Academy recently ruled AI characters cannot compete for best actor. He drew parallels to past technological shifts in cinema, including the debate over digital effects versus celluloid authenticity.
Films made without special effects or AI are "a bit like organic wine," Frémaux suggested—and declared that Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now was likely the last true "organic film," citing the famous Flight of the Valkyries helicopter sequence shot live on 35mm with real aircraft. "The number of helicopters we see in the film is the number of helicopters he had," Frémaux noted approvingly. He addressed rumors that Cannes had considered showing an AI-generated film this year as simply false—no such submission was ever received—but acknowledged his mind wasn't made up on what the festival's policy should be if one were offered.
"What I can say with certainty is that we are on the side of the artists, the screenwriters, actors and voice actors," he concluded. "We stand with everyone whose job could be negatively impacted by artificial intelligence. It requires legislation."
