Women make their say in the films of the Venice Film Festival

Women and their struggle for their rights are the focus of several films that participate in the competition for the Golden Lion Award, which is awarded the day after tomorrow, at the conclusion of the Venice Festival.

The festival, which has been criticized in recent years for the lack of gender equality in its choices, seems to have ramped up its momentum for the 77th edition, with eight directors out of 18 filmmakers selected to compete in the official competition.

The controversy over the status of women, which has been at the center of public debate since the #MeToo campaign, continues to plague the cinema world. The Venice Festival has been filled with powerful and influential women since its launch on the third of September.

Eleanor Marx, the daughter of the famous philosopher Karl Marx, who laid the foundations of communism, is emerging from the shadows thanks to the seventh art with a film about her life entitled: “Miss Marx”, participating in the official competition. The film, signed by Italian Susanna Nicarelli, is a tribute to the feminist struggle, mixing contemporary music with images from the 19th century, and swinging, like its heroine, between logic and emotions.

The youngest daughter of Karl Marx was one of the first feminist activists to integrate the struggle for equality between men and women in the struggle of social classes in the late nineteenth century.

Eleanor, educated and distinguished girl, born in London in 1855, was convinced of the liberating merits of culture and art. She committed suicide at the age of 43, due to emotional problems.

In terms of acting, British Vanessa Kirby, one of the stars of the series “The Crown”, is distinguished by playing the main role in two films. In “The World to Cam”, she plays a woman in the 19th century America, who deceives her jealous husband.

The film “Mona Fastfold”, which is one of the rare American works to participate this year in the Venice Festival, deals with the issue of women’s liberation.

The actress, who embodies the character of Princess Margaret in “The Crown”, is participating in the competition as well, with her role in “Business of A Woman”, which was directed by Hungarian Cornel Mundrosso, and wrote the script with his wife Katia Weber. And it plays the role of a mother who loses her child at birth. The birthing scene, shot from one angle for 40 minutes, is commendable.

The film asks about the ability of this mother to break free from the restrictions of society in the face of her husband, family and acquaintances after such trauma. Kirby acknowledged that conveying the suffering of women in such circumstances was a “tremendous thing” during filming.

But perhaps the “most powerful” female character on the Almustra screens is Bosnian Jasna Djuric, who plays a mother trying hard to save her family from the Srebrenica massacre (in July 1995), in “Kuo Fadis, Aida?” Jasmila Gabanic.

The Bosnian director believes that war is a “men’s game” and she wanted to present it from a female perspective.