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"The abysmal state of affairs for female directors in Hollywood got a tiny glimmer of hope in Paris this week, as the Cannes Film Festival announced its lineup: a group including 15 female filmmakers (though only two are in the main competition this year).\nAnother quirky highlight from the 2014 fest is the world premiere of\u00A0Lost River, the directorial debut of Ryan Gosling, who also wrote the bizarre tale of a single mom swept into a dark and twisted underworld (kind of like in Drive). Ben Mendelssohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Saoirse Ronan (The Host) and Gosling's main-squeeze-for-now Eva Mendes (and his co-star in\u00A0The Place Beyond the Pines) also star in the film.\nSEE ALSO: 'Hey Girl' Chrome Extension Ryan Gosling-ifies Your Web Browsing\nStarting with Shrek in 2001, DreamWorks Animation has been a stalwart at Cannes many times over, and is reprising that role this year with How to Train Your Dragon 2, which is making its world premiere out of competition. Organizers said there\u2019s one more out-of-competition film yet to be announced; look for that to be a big Hollywood film as well.\nEighteen movies will fight for the Palme d'Or, the highest prize awarded at Cannes, in the competition lineup, including Tommy Lee Jones\u2019 The Homesman, starring Meryl Streep and Hilary Swank \u2014 just Jones\u2019 second feature film as director and his first in nine years. Moneyball director Bennett Miller\u2019s Foxcatcher, starring Channing Tatum, is also in competition, alongside David Cronenberg\u2019s Maps to the Stars with Robert Pattinson and Julianne Moore.\nAnd we already knew that Cannes would open with Grace of Monaco starring Nicole Kidman as the princess.\nAs for those women directors, well \u2014 it's not exactly jump-up-and-down good news, but let's call it progress.\n\nImage: Getty ImagesThe two female-directed films in competition \u2014 Alice Rohrwacher's (above, left)\u00A0Le Meraviglie\u00A0and\u00A0Naomi Kawase's (above, right)\u00A0Still the Water\u00A0 \u2014 actually doubles the number in the past two years, which featured one apiece (in 2012, there were none). The 15 female-led films overall is more promising; last year, there were only six.\nThe only woman to win the Palme d'Or was Jane Campion, for The Piano in 1993; she's presiding over the jury this year. At a time when study after study shows that women aren't getting anything near a fair shake behind the camera, it's all welcome news.\nThe 67th Cannes Film Festival begins May 14.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/04/17/cannes-lineup-15-women-directors/>