Cate Blanchett values diverse perspectives from women of color and LGBT filmmakers over those of white middle-class males

Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett said on Monday that she finds it “exciting” to see “the point of view” of transgender and nonbinary filmmakers over that of a “white middle-class male.”

Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival Kering Women in Motion Talks, Blanchett promoted her filmmaking organization Proof of Concept, which funds films by women and transgender and nonbinary people.

“It’s interesting. A lot of the submissions by trans or nonbinary filmmakers didn’t speak directly to that experience,” she said of her organization’s applicants looking for film funding.

Blanchett continued, “But because of their lived experience, their point of view, in whatever story, in whatever genre they tell it, will be different from somebody who has grown up [as a] white middle-class male.”

“It’s a different perspective. They’ll put the camera in a different place in the room. And I think that’s really exciting. That’s when you see really different types of filmmaking,” she said.

The Hollywood star said that while she enjoys working with men whom she loves and respects, she is often doing a “head count” to see if the movie set is male dominated.

“I do the head count, and I’m back in the same place, working with men who I love working with and respect, [but] I’m walking on set and there’s 50 people on set and there’s three women. When is this going to deeply, profoundly shift?” she asked at the Cannes forum.

She also shared that it was tough for women to take risks in the film industry, while men are often “applauded for their risks.”

“Anytime that I personally have advanced in my career, it is when I have taken risks. And it’s just that a lot of our male counterparts in the industry are applauded for their risks and their bravery. And they’re given $100 million and all the male actors are taking incredible risks that may not have worked, but God!” she said.

Fellow panelist Dr. Stacy Smith, founder of the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, shared how “marginalized individuals” have to deal with a “fiscal cliff” in which they debut a film and the follow-up film project gets harder to accomplish.

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“There’s a gendered marketplace for historically marginalized individuals when they try to move from one to multiple features,” Smith said to Blanchett. “And for women, trans and nonbinary folks, it’s a one-and-done. They get one at-bat.”

She added, “It’s 11 people. [If] each of those filmmakers turn this into a feature. And let’s say they work with 100. And then those 100 people go on and work on another project that they’ve never worked in that capacity [before]. In a very short amount of time, you’re amortizing an entire groundswell of people that would never have had the opportunity and it started with 11. Exponentially, that’s how you create change.”