Cate Blanchett. “When there’s a majority of men on set, you always hear the same jokes. And it’s exhausting sometimes

He has toured with some of the most famous directors, from David Fincher (The Strange Story of Benjamin Button) to Todd Haynes (the song) via Martin Scorsese (Pilot) and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) But this year at the 76th Cannes Film Festival it is the film of fellow Australian Warwick Thornton (in 2009 he won the “Golden Camera” award. Samson and Delilah), The new guy, whom Cate Blanchett came to protect. Chosen in the U Certain Regard category, it tells the story of an Aboriginal child plucked from the bush to be taken to a monastery with other orphans. A place where everything is about survival, material and spiritual, ruled by a rebellious nun played by the actress. The latter is also the film’s producer, and accompanied executive producer Coco Francini to Kering’s Women In Motion talk on May 20. Approaching this double hat close to his heart, but also the question of the place of women in the film industry.

In the video, Cate Blanchett, a guest at the “Women in Motion” talk in Cannes

Dialogues

“Producing is a natural extension of my work as an actress.” it was through Dirty Films, which she founded with her husband Andrew Upton in 2005, that Cate Blanchett added another string to her already extensive bow of talents. To delve deeper into what motivates the choice of films in which he is involved. to dialogue with the filmmakers and bear the many aspects of the vision they intend to uphold. “For me, the choice of a film is not limited to the role, but to all the stages that accompany its development, from filming to distribution and marketing,” explained the Australian.

An approach that today gives him a global perspective on the entire mutating industry, whose success, he says, should not be limited to blockbusters and other franchises led by the superheroes who dominate Hollywood; “For me, Hollywood is a very abstract thing. . What is Hollywood, the slogan on the cover? There are Hollywoods everywhere: in Australia, France. It is necessary to focus one’s gaze, to think on different scales. In the same way, when we say about a movie that it was not well received, we should also look at how many theaters it was distributed to. You should pay attention to these numbers, calculate.

Women’s teams

They notably worked on the mini-series with Quentin Tarantino collaborator Coco Francini Mrs. America (2020), in which Cate Blanchett played Phyllis Schlafla, a conservative American activist who fought against the equal civil rights movement in the 1970s. A job for which they endeavored to contribute to a predominantly female team; every recruitment we had to interview a person of color and a woman,” recalls Coco Franchini. “Pushing teams in this direction brought us a lot of quality people they hadn’t met before.” “We told ourselves. “let’s do our best, try to recruit women,” figuring it’s going to be difficult, that we’re going to have to juggle each other’s multiple commitments,” adds Cate Blanchett. “But we realized how easy it is and how lazy the industry is to its detriment. If there is too much homogeneity in this environment, it is because the people behind the cameras are too homogenous.

A similarity that Cate Blanchett and Coco Franchini often noticed on set. We felt alienated and sometimes resentful. Because not only was I the only woman in the cast. But there were, for example, 62 men in the team, and I was the only woman,” testified the actress. With the fatigue that can cause such situations. “When the majority of men are on the set, we always hear the same jokes,” emphasizes Cate Blanchett. And we can have a sense of humor, it is sometimes tiring. » The star perch However, notes that things are evolving/moving. It happens a lot more things than since I started as an actress in the movies. There was a feeling at the time, and to be honest it mostly came from the media, that women were competing rather than collaborating. But, of course, we are collaborators. I noticed that women support each other a lot.”

In praise of slowness

If Cate Blanchett is thriving as a producer, she still thinks she’s not ready to go behind the camera. “I am often offered directing. But I’m happy to play, to produce. And I am slow. it will take me forever to make a movie. I also have four children to take care of. A place where he seeks to tame one of the virtues he lacks; “It’s a cliché, but patience can be learned. And we learn a lot by gardening. When developing extreme diversity.

Cannes, May 21st