At Venice Film Festival's jury press conference, competition jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal said there is "a systemic problem" behind the fact that only two films directed by women feature in this year's main competition, out of an original 21 Golden Lion contenders. She pointed to the greater difficulty women face in securing financing and questioned whether stories women want to tell are always considered "high art", adding that she was "walking in with a question" about the imbalance.

Only May el-Toukhy's Woman Unknown was initially selected from a female director, with the Gaza documentary NAZA, co-directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, later added to bring the total to two — down sharply from six last year. Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera has acknowledged the disparity as a recent low point and described this year's lineup as the festival's "most political" in recent times, amid wider tensions including a brief scare over whether the jury press conference would even go ahead. Gyllenhaal, whose 2021 directorial debut The Lost Daughter won Venice's best screenplay prize, leads a jury including Kaouther Ben Hania, Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and Johnnie To, who will judge a field featuring Danny Boyle's Ink, Robert Pattinson's Primetime and Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love, among others.