Arianna Bocco

A women who places passion in first place when choosing a film as Vice President of acquisitions and co-productions at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features. She elaborated further that being aggressive is the hardest part of her job.

• Arianna Bocco

Bonny Dore

Past President of Women in Film, Bonny Dore was in Cannes supporting chapter member Sheryl Lee Ralph who was announcing the upcoming Jamerican Film and Music Festival. Bonny elaborated on the aims of Women in Film, including the Crystal Awards.

• Bonny Dore

Denise Breton

A French publicist with an American flair as she is noted as the one who discovered Mash by Robert Altman and brought it to Cannes. She also handles Woody Allen in France and brought Barbara Kopple's film on Gregory Peck to Cannes this year.

• How did you stumble onto Altman's Mash? • As a publicist, are there films in your catalog that are difficult to promote for you? • What is the most rewarding part of a publicist's job?

Noelle Deschamps

Vice President and Artistic Director at the association Equinoxe (promoting young screenwriters, based on and in collaboration with Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute).

• What is Equinoxe? • Is there an Equinoxe style? • What is the role of Jeanne Moreau at Equinoxe? • As a woman in the film industry, how would you define your relation with your colleagues?

Marie-Pierre Macia

This is her second year in charge of the selection Directors' Fortnight, which she shares with Jacques Gerber and Christine Ravet. Her ideal reason for selecting a film: "un coup de coeur", the process of falling in love with a film. "Every time you see something that's really good, your faith and hope are reborn. It happens all the time. My only real fear is of not spotting a film that's of superior quality."

• What is the specific orientation of the Directors' Fortnight? • What criteria do you apply when selecting a film? • How many women are represented in the selection? • As a woman, would you consider yourself in a privelged position?

Claire Clouzot

Seven men and one woman -myself- screened 410 feature films for the 39th International Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival. We focused on first-timers and second-timers. It was exhausting, exciting, titillating and sometimes very brutal.

• Tell us about the committee and how many films were viewed? • Is there a re-occuring theme in the films? • Why are there so many women filmmakers in France as compared to elsewhere in the world? • Are there any American films in the selection this year?

Sabine Franel

For her first feature film, Le premier du nom, Sabine Franel left her post as editor (notably for docu-filmmaker Emile Weiss and Manoel de Oliveira) and put "thoughts into movement" tracing her family tree back to "the first to carry the name" (premier du nom). Being screened in the Certain Regard section, the 112-minute long film was produced by Humbert Balsan and is distributed by Pyramide.
Press contact: Nicole Lambert (in Cannes: 06 07 17 31 05)

• Tell us about your film and the role Judaism played? • What were your personal revelations while making this film and was the Holocaust an integral factor? • What was your reaction to being selected at Cannes? • Do you consider this film to be a film made by a woman?

Jeanne Labrune

French writer Jeanne Labrune (who wrote and directed the 1998 drama Si Je T'Aime, Prends Garde A Toi) wrote the screenplay for Vatel while Oscar-winning playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare In Love) adapted the it for English audiences.

• What was your inspiration for the screenplay ? • Did you and Tom Stoppard write the sceenplay together? • What did you think of the final film cut?

Other comments about Women in Cinema

• Jerome Paillard • Atom Egoyan • Jeremy Irons