1 of the 21 films at the Venice Film Festival is directed by a woman

For the second year in a row, the Venice Film Festival will only feature one film directed by a woman.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, festival chief Alberto Barbera said that women did have a fair chance, claiming that of the 1,500 film submissions he watched, one-third of them had a female at the helm.

He added that to ensure fairness, he never reads the credits ahead of a screening, though Barbera acknowledged that he can tell if a well-known director is behind a movie.

“Putting another film in the main competition just because it’s made by a woman, from my point of view, that would be really offensive for the director,” Barbera told The Hollywood Reporter. “I would prefer to change my job if I would be forced to select a film only because it’s made by a woman and not on the basis of the quality of the film itself.”

“Of course I would be happy to have more females in the festival," he continued, "but it doesn’t depend on me.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the trend of female-directed films not faring well at film festivals is not limited to Venice. At the Cannes Film Festival, just three of the 17 films shown were directed by women, and at Locarno, it was five of 15. The number of submissions by female directors to those festivals was not available.

However, the publication also noted that the upcoming Toronto Film Festival will feature many movies that are directed by women.

Barbera blamed the lack of opportunities afforded to women as a possible reason behind the lack of female representation at festivals.

“Sooner or later everybody will realize that female directors are as good and as creative as their male colleagues. But this is something that needs to be changed at the beginning of the chain, not at the end, not to guarantee for example, a quarter of film festival slots to women,” he said. “Venice can’t do anything about that. It’s not up to us to change the situation. It came too late in the process of filmmaking."

The Venice Film Festival will kick off next month with Damien Chazelle's "First Man." The only film directed by a woman, Jennifer Kent's period drama, "The Nightingale," will also be shown.