Venice Film Festival Opens With Ovation for 'Ink' as Gender Gap in Competition Draws Renewed Criticism

VENICE — The 83rd Venice International Film Festival opened Wednesday evening with the world premiere of Danny Boyle's "Ink," a dramatization of how Rupert Murdoch and editor Larry Lamb rebuilt a failing British tabloid into the best-selling newspaper in the English-speaking world. The screening in the festival's 1,032-seat Sala Grande drew a five-minute standing ovation, capping a night that also saw actor George Clooney receive the festival's lifetime achievement award.

The opening press conference held earlier that day was dominated by a different subject. Maggie Gyllenhaal, the actor and filmmaker serving as jury president for this year's edition, was asked why only two of the 21 films selected for the main competition were directed or co-directed by women. She did not deflect the question, telling reporters at a session covered by the wire dispatch from the Lido that the imbalance reflects "a systemic problem, obviously," adding that it is "much harder for women to get their films financed."

"Ink" itself is an adaptation of James Graham's Tony-nominated stage play, tracing the 1969 acquisition and relaunch of The Sun by Murdoch, played by Guy Pearce, and his editor Larry Lamb, played by Jack O'Connell, alongside Claire Foy. Boyle, who has directed everything from "Trainspotting" to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, called the assignment a milestone of a different kind. "I've been to the Biennale many times, but this is my baptism at the film festival," he said of leading Venice's opening slot for the first time in his career.

The Numbers on the Lido

The festival, for which the Biennale organization selected "Ink" as its opening title, runs eleven days, from September 2 through September 12, with the Golden Lion and seven other juried prizes to be announced at a closing ceremony.

• 21 films are competing for the Golden Lion this year, up from an initial slate of 20.
• Only two of those films are directed or co-directed by women: May El-Toukhy's "Woman Unknown" and "NAZA," a documentary about the war in Gaza co-directed by Rachel Szor, one of four filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning "No Other Land."
• Last year's competition included six female-directed films out of 21, roughly 29 percent of the slate.
• "Ink" received a five-minute standing ovation at its Sala Grande premiere, one of the festival's more enthusiastic opening-night receptions in recent years.

How the Complaint Built Through the Summer

Wednesday's exchange did not come out of nowhere. When festival artistic director Alberto Barbera unveiled the competition lineup in July with only one woman-directed film among the 20 titles, he told reporters that submissions from women that year were, in his judgment, of a quality that "was not enough to put them into the competition," a comment that drew swift pushback from Italian film organizations, who called the resulting slate "one-dimensional" and entirely male. The Biennale added a 21st film, "NAZA," to the competition program in late August, which brought Szor in as a second female co-director but did little to quiet the broader complaint about how few women's films had been submitted, selected or financed in the first place.

The pattern is not new to Venice, but it has swung sharply from year to year. Women directed 44 percent of competition titles in 2020, a high point the festival cited at the time as a milestone, before the share fell back toward roughly 29 percent last year and then to a single film this year prior to the late addition. Gyllenhaal's own history at the festival sharpens the contrast: her film "The Lost Daughter" premiered in competition in 2021 and won the award for best screenplay, and the Biennale, in announcing her appointment as jury president earlier this year, credited her with "an artistic path of uncommon consistency, constructed over time with intelligence and courage."

Gyllenhaal Presses the Point

At Wednesday's press conference, Gyllenhaal extended her argument beyond financing to the standards used to judge finished films.

"Who decides what's good? Who decides what's valuable?"

The remark put Gyllenhaal in an unusual dual position: she is both judging this year's competition and publicly questioning the process that produced its field. She will preside over a jury that also includes the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, the composer Daniel Blumberg, the French director Xavier Giannoli, the Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, the Hong Kong producer Johnnie To and the film scholar Francesco Casetti, selecting the Golden Lion winner from the same 21-film field she criticized from the podium.

The debate lands hardest on female directors working outside this year's main selection, since a Competition slot carries outsized weight in awards-season positioning and distribution. Netflix, which is backing "Ink" through both a theatrical window and its streaming platform, has an interest in how the festival's opening night is remembered heading into a crowded awards season, and other distributors with films in Venice's parallel sections will be watching the same dynamic play out over the festival's remaining ten days. The debate also colors how the festival's other news of the day was received: Clooney used his lifetime achievement remarks to raise a separate industry worry, telling the crowd he would rather avoid, in his words, being resurrected for advertising after his death, a comment on artificial intelligence reported in the Associated Press's dispatch from the opening ceremony. A separate account of opening night's two Golden Lion honors detailed how Clooney and actress Ellen Burstyn were both feted before Boyle's premiere began. Barbera has separately pointed to a slate heavy with documentaries on live conflicts, including the war in Gaza and immigration enforcement in the United States, as another defining feature of this year's program.

What Happens Next

The festival continues through September 12, when Gyllenhaal's jury will award the Golden Lion along with prizes for direction, acting and screenplay. "Ink" is scheduled for a limited U.S. theatrical release on December 11 ahead of a Netflix streaming debut in January, positioning it for the early stretch of awards-season voting. "Woman Unknown" and "NAZA" have yet to screen for the full jury, and how either fares at the closing ceremony is likely to shape how this year's edition is remembered — either as a passing controversy or as the moment organizers faced pressure to change how the competition is assembled for 2027.