India Pavilion at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival started with a powerful session on the role of women in media and entertainment space on Day 4 of the Cannes Film Festival yesterday.

The session, aptly titled ‘She Shines’ or Nari Shakti, was moderated by actor-producer Khushboo Sundar, while the speakers were Indian actor Esha Gupta, Greek-American director Daphne Schmon, and Indian filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Sudhir Mishra — both of whom are known for making female-centric films.

Starting the conversation Sundar said, “India cinema is going through a beautiful phase where women are playing an important role in cinema not only as actors but also producers, directors and technicians.”

Talking about creative economy with women power, an official statement quoted Bhandarkar as saying at the Cannes session, “It is difficult to raise funds when you have a woman as the hero of the film, but I have been lucky to have made films (with women) that have done well at the box office, have won National Awards. You don’t get a desirable budget with women oriented film(s), but that’s the case all over the world.”

Why the risk then? Bhandarkar explained: “I am comfortable making films from their (women’s) point of view. It gives the stories a different perspective.”

“When I went to a producer with ‘Chandni Bar’, people didn’t want to put in money. I had to then make a film with multiple heroes called ‘Trishakti’. The film didn’t do well at all. Then I decided to make ‘Chandni Bar’ and finally managed to get a producer on board. Thankfully ‘Chandni Bar’ was commercially and critically acclaimed.

“That, I think, gave me the courage to make more movies with women as my central characters. Though even today, people tell me the budgets that I am getting to make a film will increase if I make a film with a hero. But I am happy to make the kind of cinema I am making. Things are definitely changing, though, especially with OTT, it gives everyone an opportunity to take these risks.”

Gupta while talking about her experience said this year she completed a decade in industry and till 2019 it was just a dream to have an important role in a film.

“We were trying to make a film with Anupam Kher and Kumud Mishra, with me as the central character of a female cop, but it was very difficult to get funds for the film. When the film came in theatres, it didn’t do well at all. but when the film came on Netflix, it was viewed widely. This shows that audiences want to watch women’s stories. Things are changing now but we need more directors who will have faith in our stories,” she explained.

Daphne Schmon who directed film ‘The Eye’ with Shruti Haasan said, “It’s important to acknowledge that 51 percent of movie going audiences are women. We need to see our stories on screen. We need to focus on having women directors and actors in the forefront. We select around 10 women every year and help them get finance for their films. It is important that we see men and women on equal footing as artists.”

The numbers (box office collection) of ‘Wonder Woman’ shows that if a film is made well, it will do well even with a woman as the main character. “We need to market these films well,” she added.

Mishra joined in the conversation to say that these days people aren’t giving box office opening numbers, anyway.

“The audiences are changing. They are waiting for OTT release of films. The environment in the industry is changing rapidly. If we go to a film set, 50 percent of the crew is women. I hope we have more women filmmakers and I hope they tell our (men’s) perspective too.

“France is one country where there are more women younger directors than men, I think. Slowly things are changing, we have Zoya and Reema and so many others in South (India). We still have a long way to go, but we are progressing,” he explained.

Talking about how the government is contributing towards women empowerment in various fields, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Dr. L. Murugan said, “Women are really shining and will continue to shine in cinema. I don’t see cinema as a female or male centric cinema. There was a Tamil film called ‘Magalir Mattum’ (Ladies Only) with women as central characters and it really did well.

“Vidya Balan is doing well. There are films like ‘Padman’ that are focussing on women issues (like periods and importance of sanitary pads). Nari Shakti is emerging under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

Dr. Murugan also spoke about how NFDC has trained more than 100 women creators and technicians in the film industry and the initiative called 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow had more than 70 percent females this year.

“Government has so many schemes dedicated to women power.” He concluded.