“The Substance” and its director withdraw from the Camerimage festival in protest

Coralie Fargeat was to present “The Substance” at the Polish Camerimage festival. But the French director changed her mind. At issue: the remarks deemed misogynistic by the director of the event, in contradiction with the very purpose of his film.

Ni one, nor two: Coralie Fargeat has decided to withdraw her film, The Substancefrom the program of Camerimage, a film festival focused on cinematography, which takes place in the Polish city of Toruń from November 16 to 23. In a column published in the journal Cinematography World Magazine, its director, Marek Żydowicz, had in fact implied that the desire to include women in the selections could lead to mediocre films being selected. “ Should we reject valuable works just to “make room” in the name of social change? »he asked himself.

Comments that are unacceptable in the eyes of the French director, including the horror film, which features the confrontation between an aerobics queen classified because of her age (Demi Moore) and her younger double (Margaret Qualley), loudly asserts its feminist message. « “The Substance” is precisely about the effect that this type of behavior has on our world. We should no longer tolerate them »she said to explain her decision on X, while her director of photography, Benjamin Kračun, stood in solidarity.

Director Steve McQueen has also withdrawn

His reaction is not isolated: the British director Steve McQueen, who was to screen Blitz at the opening of the festival and receive a prize, also made it known that there would not be one. “It is our duty to make and demand more space so that everyone can sit at the table”he commented in the American magazine Variety. As for the Women in Cinematography collective, created at the beginning of the year to bring together female directors and cinematographers from around the world, it published a long press release to denounce the way in which the festival had systematically kept female personalities aside: “The historical exclusion of women, with rare exceptions, by Camerimage, is the very reason for the formation of Women in Cinematography. »

The controversy is all the more challenging as the Polish festival focuses more specifically on shooting: should we see in its positioning a resistance to ceding the camera and the frame to women, emblems of an all-powerful male gaze? These frictions also show that despite symbolic progress, the effective feminization of cinema still faces serious obstacles, as evidenced by the decline in the number of films directed by women in 2023 recorded by the CNC. Faced with the desertion of his guests, Marek Żydowicz twice apologized and promised to open the discussion on how “to move forward together in a more open and inclusive way”. A reflection which should be initiated this edition by Cate Blanchett: president of the jury, the actress chose to remain in her position and said she was impatient to do battle on issues of parity.