One Woman, One Lion, One Loud Debate: Venice's Gender Math. Plus: How a Coyote Beat Warners | #032

Only 1 of ~20 Venice competition films was directed by a woman. And she won the Golden Lion. Joanna Szymanska, Jennifer Sabbah-Immagine and Fabian Massah break down the numbers and the backlash. Woman Unknown, directed by Denmark's May el-Toukhy, just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the only woman-directed film in a competition of roughly 20 titles. Under jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal, the win reignited a familiar controversial question: did she win because being the only woman in the room? The Sideletters unpack what the Golden Lion controversy actually reveals about festival curation, pulling real numbers from Cannes, Berlinale and Venice's last few competition years to ask: is this a talent gap, a submissions gap, or a gatekeeping problem? Also on the table: the improbable box-office comeback of Coyote vs. Acme, the finished Warner Bros. film that was shelved for a $30M tax write-off in 2023, rescued by indie distributor Ketchup Entertainment, and partly funded by Legion M, a community-equity fund whose investor shares reportedly sold out in 48 hours. Is this the start of a new "protest ticket" economy, where audiences vote with their wallets? And can it be replicated? Links: 🔗 Coyote vs. Acme (https://www.indiewire.com/features/co...) (IndieWire) 🔗 Coyote vs. Acme (https://letterboxd.com/journal/coyote...) (Letterboxd) 🔗 Venice Awards (https://variety.com/2026/film/festiva...) (Variety) 👉 Connect with The Sideletters community on LinkedIn (  / the-sideletters  ) . The Sideletters is a weekly European B2B conversation on film, tech & future business. New episodes every Wednesday. Hosted by Jennifer Sabbah-Immagine (  / jennifer-sabbah-immagine  ) (Paris), Joanna Szymanska (  / joanna-szymanska-25085622  ) (Warsaw) and Fabian Massah (  / fabianmassah  ) (Berlin/Hamburg).