Maggie Gyllenhaal has criticized the lack of female directors in the main competition at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, describing the imbalance as evidence of a wider problem within the film industry. Speaking at the festival’s jury press conference on September 2, Gyllenhaal questioned why women continue to face greater difficulty securing financing for their movies and whether the stories they want to tell are given the same artistic value as those made by men.
Gyllenhaal is serving as president of the seven-member international jury at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, which runs from September 2 through September 12. The official festival announcement confirms that she will lead the jury responsible for awarding the Golden Lion and other major competition prizes.
Why Gyllenhaal believes female filmmakers face systemic barriers
The gender imbalance has become one of the most notable issues surrounding this year’s Venice lineup. Only two of the 21 films competing for the Golden Lion are directed or co-directed by women, compared with six female-directed titles in last year’s competition.
When asked about the disparity, Gyllenhaal initially responded with a joke before addressing the issue seriously. She then said,
“There’s a systemic problem,”
arguing that women have greater difficulty obtaining financing for their projects.
Gyllenhaal also raised a broader question about how the industry determines which stories qualify as important cinema.
“Could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art?”
she asked during the press conference, as reported by The Guardian.
She followed that thought by questioning who gets to establish the standards of artistic value. Her comments suggest that the issue goes beyond simply counting how many women receive festival slots and extends to financing decisions and the industry’s perception of stories traditionally associated with female experiences.
Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera has acknowledged the unusually low representation. Reuters reported that Barbera pointed to a decline in submissions from women as one factor behind this year’s lineup, while Gyllenhaal focused on the larger structural barriers that can affect filmmakers before their projects ever reach a festival selection committee.
Gyllenhaal also emphasized that her own appointment as jury president carries significance. Her directing debut, The Lost Daughter, premiered in Venice in 2021 and won the festival’s Best Screenplay award before earning three Academy Award nominations.
Her role this year places her at the center of the jury that will evaluate films including Danny Boyle’s Ink, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love and the Gaza documentary NAZA. The jury includes Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, Hong Kong director Johnnie To, Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli, composer Daniel Blumberg and film scholar Francesco Casetti. (La Biennale di Venezia)
Gyllenhaal also connected the discussion about representation to her broader view of cinema. Amid questions about whether filmmakers have a responsibility to engage with political issues, she argued that movies can create empathy by allowing audiences to experience perspectives different from their own.
For Gyllenhaal, that makes cinema inherently connected to the world around it. “I think that if movies really are an honest look into other people’s experience, then they are fundamentally, unavoidably political,” she said, according to Variety.
