Only one female director in competition in 2026: the Mostra accused of sexism

A total lack of parity which provokes the anger of several Italian cinema organizations, while artistic director Alberto Barbera defends himself by invoking a single criterion: the quality of the films.

Barely revealed, the selection for the 83rd Venice Film Festival is already controversial. The reason: the very low representation of women in official competition.

Of the 20 films competing for the Golden Lion, only one is directed by a woman, a spectacular decline compared to the 2025 edition, which had six female directors out of twenty-one films.

Several Italian organizations in the audiovisual sector, including Women in Film Television and Media Italia, ANAC, 100autori, Air3, Doc/it and the European Women’s Audiovisual Network, published a virulent column in the daily La Repubblica.

The signatories denounce in particular a 100% male Italian representation:

“Seven directors represent Italian cinema in and out of competition in Venice. It’s a one-dimensional selection: entirely male.“

The text goes further by contesting the argument often put forward about the “quality” of the works.

“Quality is not a divine, neutral and objective category suspended above History.write the organizations. “Each selection is the result of a look, a culture, an imagination, preferences, sensitivities, limits, errors and a precise editorial line.”

They believe that it is impossible to explain, year after year, such an imbalance by simply asserting that female directors offer less good films.

“When the result is such an unbalanced representation, we cannot conclude that female directors are ‘not good enough’. We must ask ourselves if our way of watching cinema is still adapted to our times.”

This year, May El-Toukhy is the only woman competing with Woman Unknown. On the other hand, the section Orizzontidedicated to new voices in world cinema, displays much greater parity with eight female directors out of nineteen films, or around 42% of the selection.

Asked by Varietyartistic director Alberto Barbera rejects any accusation of sexism:

“I don’t think we can be accused of having a bias against female directors. Since 2000, Venice has rewarded more women than Cannes, Berlin or other festivals.”

He notably recalls that Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), Audrey Diwan (The Event) and Laura Poitras (All the beauty and bloodshed) have won the Golden Lion for the last five years. He also highlights that the three main juries of this edition are chaired by women: Maggie Gyllenhaal for the competition, Valérie Donzelli for Orizzonti and Carolina Cavalli for the Luigi De Laurentiis prize.

According to Barbera, the problem mainly comes from the number of films received:

“We were hoping to find more films directed by women for the competition, but we received fewer. Fiction films directed by women represented 24% of works submitted this year, compared to 30% last year.”

The artistic director goes even further by assuming his choice:

“Unfortunately, we also found them to be of lower quality. We were therefore not able to retain more in competition. This is a great disappointment, but there should be no bias on our part. The only rigorous criterion we follow is the quality of the films.”

The 83rd Venice Film Festival will take place from September 2 to 12, 2026.