Kering Presents Women in Motion Program at Palm Springs International Film Festival

“I’m Julia, this is my friend Sean, and I am so excited for what’s about to happen to everyone in this room.”

On a September 2025 evening in the Hollywood Hills, “Julia” was Julia Roberts, “Sean” was Sean Penn, and the imminent happening was a screening of Brazilian filmmaker Marianna Brennand’s movie Manas. The dramatic film is based on true stories of sexual exploitation of young girls on the island of Marajó in northern Brazil. Manas, Roberts said, “is life-affirming in such a sad and beautiful and magical way.”

The screening at a private home was part of a whirlwind promotional tour for Brennand — but the U.S. premiere of Manas took place at the Palm Springs International Film Festival back in January 2025, long before it was on the radar of Hollywood elite. Back then, Brennand had not yet won the Women in Motion Emerging Talent Award in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where Penn heard her award speech. The actor was so moved, even though he didn’t know anything about Manas, that he asked to see the film, then became an executive producer.

“The eloquence and the authenticity of this person was the kind of power that could only make a great film,” Penn said at the screening.

“Manas is not just the film,” Brennand said in her speech. “It’s the echo of the feminine first — ancestral, urgent, and courageous. It speaks for the women who came before us and for those still fighting to be heard. … Manas — sisters — the power is in the sisterhood. And becoming part of the Women in Motion community means exactly that to me.”

Celebrating its 10th year, Women in Motion was launched by luxury holding company Kering in 2015 at the Cannes Film Festival to highlight the achievements of women in cinema. Jane Fonda was the recipient of the inaugural Women in Motion Award. The program added the Emerging Talent Award in following years, bestowing the honor on such filmmakers as Carla Simón of Spain, who used the grant funds she earned from the award to make her film Alcarràs, which won the Golden Bear, the top honor at the Berlin International Film Festival.

“Cinema is a mirror,” François-Henri Pinault, president of Kering, said at the ceremony. “And when women are excluded, that mirror is distorted.”

In 2025, Women in Motion, which also hosts discussions and podcasts, partnered with the Palm Springs International Film Festival to support two “Talking Pictures” discussion panels: one featuring Angelina Jolie talking about her film Maria, and the other with the cast and director of Emilia Pérez.

For the 2026 event, Jan. 2–12, Women in Motion will again host talks, including a panel on Jan. 3 with Amanda Seyfried, winner of the festival’s Desert Palm Achievement award for her performance in The Testament of Ann Lee, and Mona Fastvold, the film’s director. Seyfried stars in the musical drama as Mother Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker religious movement.

Brennand, speaking on a Zoom call from Los Angeles, where she was screening Manas for Golden Globes and Academy Awards consideration, said that after she won the Women in Motion honor, “things took a turn with the film. It opened so many doors, built so many bridges, and reinforced my belief that cinema can be a form of transformation and connection.”

Among dozens of honors, Manas also won the Director’s Award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori, and is nominated as the Brazilian entry for Spain’s Goya Awards in the best Ibero-American film category.

The Emerging Talent Award comes with a grant of 50,000 euros (about $58,000) to support the winner’s next film project. “I have an idea boiling in my mind,” Brennand says.

Brennand is part of the female force advocating for fellow film manas (“sisters” in Portuguese). “Working with women is one of the things I love the most, and I think we have to empower each other,” she says. “We have to promote and understand each other, and that’s how we get stronger.”

For tickets to individual festival film screenings and Talking Pictures panels, or passes that include a variety of activities, visit psfilmfest.org.

The Meaning Behind Manas

The title of Marianna Brennand’s film Manas is not translated for English audiences, which is a deliberate choice. Although the Portuguese “manas” translates to “sisters,” it implies more than genetic ties.

“Mana is like hermana, short for sister,” Brennand says. “Mana is a word of endearment and sorority and support. So you can call your sister mana, but you can call also call a friend mana. Where the film takes place, women call each other mana. If I called [the film] Sisters, it wouldn’t have that extra special meaning to it, that force.”

Brennand has long known she wanted to be a filmmaker. “I believe in the power of cinema as a tool for social and political change,” she says. “I think that through empathy, we are able to change things. Manas puts you in the heart and soul of this girl while she goes through the most horrible and unimaginable violence.”  

By the Numbers

Leading Ladies

A closer look at how women’s roles behind the camera have grown over the past decade.

To mark its 10th anniversary, Women in Motion looked at who’s really calling the shots behind today’s biggest films. The study shows a slow but steady rise in women taking on key creative roles.

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directors

1 in 7

Women directed roughly one-seventh of 2024’s top-grossing films in the U.S. — nearly double their share from a decade ago.

composers

Up more than 600%

Women grew from 0.9% of top-film composers in 2015 to 6.5%, one of the biggest jumps.

producers

20.7%

Just over one-fifth of producers on 2024’s top films were women, up from 18.3% in 2015.

writers

13 out of 100

Women earned 13 percent of the writing credits on 2024’s top box-office titles.

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Study conducted by Stacy L. Smith, Ph.D., founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California.