By Colin Brown
Jane Campion remains the only woman director ever to get a hand on the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival when her film The Piano shared the Palme d’Or with Farewell My Concubine back in 1993. This week, the same New Zealand-born filmmaker notched up another Cannes milestone of sorts by becoming the first woman other than an actress to serve as the festival’s Jury President. But even if her jury ends up bestowing laurels on one of the two solitary women filmmakers in competition this year, Campion herself remains unimpressed by such belated dents on the celluloid ceiling. “You’d have to say there’s some inherent sexism in the industry,” she lamented at Wednesday’s news conference on the Croisette. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” Campion then added, looking across at some of her fellow jurors sitting alongside her, “but the guys are eating all the cake.”
The prevailing idea is that film, like any other art form, is made by a single genius. TV drama is, however, more often than not the result of collaboration between many writers and minds. How is that possible, and what does it mean?
