VENICE : WOMEN DIRECTORS SLAM

VENICE : The Venice film festival was slammed for its ''toxic masculinity'' as it opened on Wednesday with just one female director represented among its most  mouth-watering line up in  decades.

With Hollywood effectively turning the festival into its launchpad for the Oscars with new films by Damien Chazelle, the Coen brothers, Alfonso Cuaron and Lady Gaga's much hyped screen debut-

Feminists have lashed the organisers for choosing only one film by a female director.

It is the second year in a row that Venice has featured just one film by a woman among the 21 vying for the Golden lion top  prize.

Festival director Alberto Barbera had declared that he would  ''rather quit''  than give in to pressure for a quota for a women after the Cannes, Toronto and Locarno festivals pledged themselves to gender equality.

''But  his stance was lambasted by an alliance of European women film-makers, ''Sorry, but we don't buy this anymore,'' said the European Women's Audiovisual Network in an open letter earlier this month.

When Alberto Barbera threatens to quit, he is perpetuating the notion that selecting films by female film-makers involves lowering standards.

Australian Jennifer Kent is the solitary woman gunning for the Golden lion with Nightingale. [AFP]