Cate Blanchett and her fellow jury members at the 2024 Camerimage Film Festival have put out a statement of support for the event after it was engulfed in controversy earlier this week due to a controversial editorial penned by the festival’s director.
The world’s leading specialty festival dedicated to the art of cinematography, Camerimage is scheduled to kick off on Saturday in Toruń, Poland. The festival has long been an industry favorite, especially among directors and their craft collaborators, but it has come under scrutiny after its founder and CEO Marek Zydowicz published an editorial last week attempting to explain the event’s dearth of female cinematographers in the selections of past editions. In his somewhat muddled column, the festival head seemed to argue that pushing for greater female representation could result in a lineup of diminished artistic quality. The reaction from the international film community was swift, with several leading cinematography guilds publicly condemning the remarks and Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen, who was scheduled to attend the opening-night screening of his latest feature, Blitz, canceling his appearance.
Fellow Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett had previously signed on to serve as the president of Camerimage’s main competition jury, so industry watchers were curious to weigh her response to the imbroglio. The Tár and Disclaimer star gave her answer Wednesday in a joint statement posted to Instagram with her fellow jurors Anna Higgs, Sandy Powell, Anthony Dod Mantle, Rodrigo Prieto, Lukasz Zal and Jolanta Dylewska.
“We welcome debate regarding gender representation,” the group wrote. “While we will be focussed on the task we have the great privilege to have been invited to take on — to watch and celebrate the work of cinematographers — we look forward to being part of meaningful discussions with our peers at the festival about greater inclusion and recognition of excellence in all its forms in our industry. We wholeheartedly support the necessary shift towards genuine inclusivity, and festivals can be a great forum for engaging in such conversations and championing positive change.”
Sources close to Camerimage say discussions are underway for Blanchett and some of the other jurors to potentially take part in a public roundtable discussing the important issues and changes underway in the film industry — including representation.
In response to the departure of McQueen, who was supposed to receive the festival’s outstanding director award, Żydowicz said in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter, “It was with great sadness that I accepted Steve McQueen’s decision to withdraw from the festival. I apologize once more, and I would like to take this opportunity to sit down in an open forum and talk about how to move forward together in a more open and inclusive manner. The festival is here to embrace each other as a community and to share in the appreciation of the images we cherish together as a community. Let’s have a meaningful discourse together as a community so that we can begin to rebuild in a more equitable manner. Let us have a conversation and determine the steps that will make the festival, our industry, more open, unified and representative of all voices.”
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