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Venice – The last full day of the 69th edition of the Venice Film Festival was a study in contrasts, after back-to-back in-competition Sala Grande screenings of thriller Passion from Brian De Palma, which recounts the story of a ferocious female rivalry, and Francesca Comencini’s cerebral Un Giorno Speciale (A Special Day), about the difficult journey from Rome’s periphery to the city center for two young children determined to make something of their lives. Meanwhile, the first of the collateral prizes from the festival started to trickle in, with a pair of films from the well-regarded

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Of 22 films in competition at Cannes last year, none had been directed by a woman, but there are signs the tide is turning

La Mostra del Cinema, the most venerable of international film festivals which opens today in Venice, and its new head, Alberto Barbera, seem to have got the message. What message? The one sent by dismayed festival-goers to Cannes last May upon discovering that out of 22 films in competition, none had been directed by a woman.

There was no need to be a hardcore feminist to feel a little troubled, especially when the newly elected French president François Hollande announced a perfectly gender balanced government on the very day the Cannes film festival opened: 17 female ministers and 17 male ministers.

One doesn't necessarily have to agree with French feminist groupuscules such as La Barbe (I often don't), but had it not been for their public brouhaha about Cannes' lack...