CANNES, France – Julianne Moore was in motion Sunday night, honored by the Kering group for her work in film, as actors, filmmakers and fashion executives climbed the hill overlooking Cannes for the annual Women in Motion dinner.
Salma Hayek arrived in Gucci, celebrating the house’s cruise show taking place the same day on the other side of the Atlantic. “I think he’s extraordinary. He’s very unexpected,” she said of Demna’s work at the house.
“Julianne has been an amazing inspiration,” Hayek said of Moore. “They tell you that you’re going to expire at a certain point, and she’s definitely proved that wrong. She gets better and better and better. She’s a class act.”
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Hayek arrived with husband and Kering chairman François-Henri Pinault, though he slipped away to rehearse his speech while she worked the press line. Hayek said opportunities for women in Hollywood have expanded through streaming and increasingly global productions.
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“Sometimes its two steps back and a half step forward, but also I think the globalization has helped us a little bit,” she said.
Hayek also revealed she has already completed shooting an unannounced directorial project and is now putting the final touches on the film. “I’ve already finished [shooting]. I’m in editing,” she said.
Moore wore a custom butter-yellow Bottega Veneta look, with creative director Louise Trotter traveling to Cannes to dress the actress personally. Trotter wore a similar look in white sequins.
“It makes me feel very cool. It makes me feel like Louise, who I think is very cool,” Moore said of the look. “Last time I saw her she was wearing a pair of white shoes, and I went right out and got the same pair.”
Moore said the defining lesson of her career has been persistence, recalling an early rejection from a well-known director.
“He said, ‘You’re really talented, but you’re not right in this part. You will encounter many things that you’re not right for, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not good, or that you don’t have a future,’” she recalled.
“So I think knowing that you have to be persistent, you have to keep trying, has been really valuable to me,” she added.
Moore later caught up with Vicky Krieps, who met through their Bottega connection. Krieps said the pair have become close and now regularly text each other, and revealed she is being considered for an unnamed project Moore is developing.
Krieps arrived in a fully embroidered red beaded suit that weighed several pounds. “It’s like a million beads and very heavy, like a carpet,” she said. “But I love it because I feel like it’s an armor, and at the same time, a bit Pierrot,” she added, referencing the French clown and the exaggerated shoulders of the look.
“White Lotus” star Charlotte Le Bon embraced a more practical Cannes dress code in Tod’s, paired with loafers. “I always wear flats,” she said. “In the beginning of my career I wore heels because I thought we were supposed to do that, and then I realized I didn’t have to do it. It’s very freeing.”
Le Bon said progress for women in film remains frustratingly slow. “It’s the 79th edition, and only three Palmes for women?” she said. “Obviously we were invisible for a long time.”
Colman Domingo arrived in a sparkling Valentino jacket left over from the “Michael” press tour. “I feel like we’re doing our victory lap — we crossed over $700 million [box office] today,” he said of the Michael Jackson biopic. “It’s been huge, and I need to represent the film today.”
Despite early murmurs of controversy around the film, Domingo said he always believed in its success. “It feels good to be right,” he joked.
The actor said he named his production company after his mother, Edith, and hopes the company creates opportunities for women filmmakers. “I wanted it to be a very female-centric company as well, that we always invite in very strong women to tell stories,” he said. “I want to make sure there are inroads for women.
“We all have to stay the course, not only women — people of color, people who are disabled — to make sure that everyone has access and training” in the industry, he added.
His Cannes trip was brief. “I’ve gotta get back to L.A., or Tina Fey will kill me,” he joked, referencing the premiere of his upcoming series “The Four Seasons.”
Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch used her speech to argue that the next phase of gender equity in film must move beyond visibility toward real access to power, financing and decision-making positions.
“Visibility without access is a beautiful window without a key,” she said.
Knobloch urged guests to not simply “support” women, but to actively recommend them for jobs, financing and decision-making positions. “Power is not observing change, it is signing the check that makes it all possible,” she said.
On stage, Moore reflected on the importance of female perspectives in film and culture, arguing that women’s stories are too often dismissed unless they fit traditionally “strong” or male-coded narratives.
“There is a cultural assumption, particularly in the United States, that women’s stories are less interesting or smaller,” she said. “I think that’s untrue, because I think, what about the female audience? What do they want to watch? I f–king love actresses.”
Dropping the well-timed F-bomb brought whoops and cheers from the audience.
“We need more female voices in our industry, more writers, more directors, more actresses to carry that vision forward,” she added.
The Emerging Talent Award was presented to Italian filmmaker Margherita Spampinato.
Other guests included Warner Bros. president and chief executive officer David Zaslav, who said he was in town for the very secretive Bryan Lourd and Anthropic party set to take place Monday night, along with Chloé Zhao, Ruth Negga, Isabelle Huppert, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Rami Malek, Harris Dickinson and Han So-hee rounding out the crowd under the twinkling lights.