Across Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Busan, Toronto, and India’s own IFFI, women are no longer a token presence but a defining force: winning grand prizes, rewriting programming ratios, and setting the terms of global cinematic conversation

For decades, women made landmark films from the margins. Today, they are writing the marquee. In the space of a few seasons, festival line-ups, major prizes, and even the Oscars scoreboard have shifted in ways that feel structural, not symbolic. Indian filmmakers are right in the thick of this turn, winning grand prizes, anchoring juries, and setting programming benchmarks at home. The result is not just better representation; it is a deeper recalibration of what stories global cinema deems central.

Consider the springboard moment: in May 2024, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light became the first Indian film ever to win Cannes’ Grand Prix and the first Indian film in 30 years to compete for the Palme. In 2025, she returned to Cannes as a main-competition juror, proof that the system now sees her not as an outlier but as an authority. The halo effects were immediate: theatrical runs, major critics’ lists, and awards-season momentum that travelled well beyond the Croisette.

The ripple stretched across the festival map. At the 2024 Berlinale, the Golden Bear went to Mati Diop’s Dahomey, consolidating a two-year pattern of documentaries and of women, owning the top prize. That outcome, coupled with the festival’s broader authorial mix, signalled that “female gaze” is no longer a sidebar; it’s a core cinematic grammar.

Venice, long a bellwether for awards season, has also edged toward breadth. In 2024, women accounted for a meaningful slice of the main competition; by 2025, the festival’s awards slate again featured high-profile wins by women, and critically for India; a breakthrough in the Orizzonti (Horizons) competition: Bengal-born Anuparna Roy won Best Director for her debut Songs of Forgotten Trees, the first Indian filmmaker to take that prize in the section. It’s a milestone that sits comfortably alongside the Kapadia moment, evidence that Indian women are no longer........

© The Pioneer