Diversity and inspiration intersected interestingly at Variety’s “New Gen Voices in Filmmaking” panel at the Cannes Film Festival, presented by Adobe, where young directors from Iran, China, and the U.S. talked about what moved them to make movies and how the global filmmaking ecosystem is evolving.
The panel, moderated at the American Pavillion by Variety’s senior awards editor Clayton Davis kicked off with Amy White, global head of corporate social responsibility at Adobe and the executive director of the Adobe Foundation, setting the tone of the discussion.
“Today we are here to talk about how to shake up the film industry,” White said. “And how we are going to continue to share the stories of voices that aren’t always heard.”
Then Dr. Stacy Smith, founder of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, took the floor to trumpet the results of their new data-driven ranking that highlights the titles of the 100 most inclusive theatrically-released films between 2019 and 2022.
“One thing that I think is really important to underscore is that seven of the top ten films were directed by women of color. That is the future of the entertainment industry,” she said.
At this point is was the young directors’ turn to take the floor and talk about what inspired them to make their shorts selected for the Cannes La Cinef Cineme of Tomorrow section, among 2,000 films submitted by film schools from around the world.
New York City native Katie Blair, director of the dark comedy short (“Imogene”), recounted how she was inspired by a personal experience. “My film is about a woman who is very different from her family,” she said. “She is in her 40’s, single, and free-spirited. She dates men and women and her family is very traditional.” The short takes place over one night when the protagonist’s family basically tries to get her pregnant through artificial insemination. “A couple of years ago some of the men in my family approached me about how and when I would have a kid. It was a very awkward experience. I feel like I made the film to process it,” Blair went on to explain.
Coming to Cannes from Tehran’s Karnameh Film School were Shafagh Abosaba and Maryam Mahdiye, co-directors of “Daroone Poust” (Inside the Skin). “Our film is inspired by our personal experiences in a country, Iran, where it’s hard for a woman to make things,” said Abosaba. She described the film as being about a teenage soccer player player who decides to leave the world of sports because the feels he doesn’t belong there. “It’s about minority people in a society that actually bans images of women and LGBTQ people. So its completely drawn from the experience of my teen-age years,” said Mahdiye.
Next up was Yupeng He who is from Guangzhou, China, and is currently studying film at Columbia. He described his short “A Bright Sunny Day” as being about “The appearance of a girl that gently changes a man’s life” before going on to note: “It sounds romantic, but it’s not,” eliciting roars of laughter in the room. Then he added: “I haven’t had a relationship yet, so it’s not my personal story.” More laughter.
But “Sunny Day” definitely conveys some personal feelings, said He, who underlined how he left his hometown to study in the U.S. “During the past summer I was thinking about departure and farewell and my feelings of solitude. So that was the inspiration for me to create this film.”
