Issues of under-written female roles, mid-life career transitions, and negotiating male-dominated spaces took center stage at the 2nd edition of the Kering Women in Motion forum at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
The high-profile panel at Shanghai’s historic Cathay Theatre saw veteran Hong Kong actor Cecilia Yip and Chinese actor Rebecca Li Manxuan share the stage with Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha and documentarian Carla Gutiérrez.
Yip, reflecting on a career spanning 45 years, spoke about the pressure to conform to industry expectations early on. “It was a major source of distress, especially when I was acting. At that time, female roles indeed didn’t have much room for development. I knew I couldn’t be a ‘flower vase’, so I had to make another choice: to polish my acting skills and my performances,” said Yip.
“Times have changed. Over the past decade or so, I have rarely heard this term. Everyone now realizes that women’s stories contain a wealth of beautiful romance and narrative depth that can be told from a female perspective. I think this represents real progress for women’s cinema.”
Rebecca Li Manxuan reflected on her growth as a young actor during the production of “Guo Ran”, which featured in the Tiger Competition at IFFR 2025. “This film is very unique; its pacing is incredibly slow, and the presentation is exceptionally delicate. Sometimes, director Li Dongmei would keep the camera on me for about three minutes just showing me sleeping or eating,” said Li.
“I kept worrying, ‘Will the audience find this boring? What are we acting out?’ But she kept telling me one thing: ‘You have to believe that stillness is power’. This exact spirit of being composed and holding one’s ground is inherently female.”
Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha echoed the necessity of navigating male-dominated spaces, tracing her professional resilience back to her distinct childhood. Sent to an elite secondary school in Tunisia as one of its only female students alongside 3,500 boys, Bouchoucha was offered a very different perspective from a young age. “I had to learn how to seamlessly navigate a male-dominated world. When I started in production, I learned how to navigate, how to get along,” she said.
The panel also tackled mid-life career transitions, and how that affects women differently. Emmy-winning documentarian and editor Carla Gutiérrez (“Frida”) spoke about her decision to pivot to directing in her 40s. “At that age, I noticed many people, especially women, felt they needed to settle down and stop making changes because they had already achieved a certain level of success. But at that precise moment, I felt my life actually needed change. So, I stepped into the world of directing,” said Gutiérrez.
“It was a bit terrifying at the time. I wasn’t young anymore, my family dynamic was shifting, my life was changing, and my body was changing too. Instead of breaking me, they gave me the energy and strength to tackle this new phase. While change can be terrifying at a certain point in time, it is only through embracing it that new stories can be born.”
Kering’s Women in Motion forum and screenings was held in conjunction with the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival and guided by the theme “Boundless Imagination, Endless Motion.”
