Over the weekend I had posted about a Caltech professor by the name of Girish Shambu having been hired by BFI in early summer as a “voting consultant” for the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.
The plan for the poll was to blow the doors wide open by mixing up the “chains of recommendation.” Even though he claimed that he didn’t want changes to occur, a tweet written by him dated 08.08.22 said otherwise.
Now we have a reader that did his own digging and compared Shambu’s 2012 and 2022 submitted lists for the poll. The reader aptly writes that this is “most likely the kind of list changes that happened in a lot of ballots.” Probably, yeah.
Shambu’s 2012 list has just one female filmmaker in the top 10 and his 2022 list is a complete overhaul, a whopping 8 out of the 10 films he selected were from female filmmakers. The two non-female filmmakers he chose on his list were Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) and Greg Araki (“Smiley Face”).
Girish Shambu’s 2012 List
Beau Travail
Belle de Jour
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
The Devil Probably
Dil Se ..
L’Enfance Nue
The Golden Thread
India: Matri Buhmi
Love Streams
Marnie
Girish Shambu’s 2022 List
Jeanne Dielman
Born in Flames
Daughters of the Dust
Beau Travail
All Over Me
The Gleaners & I
In the Cut
Smiley Face
A Girl at My Door
Get Out
In a statement that accompanied the ballot, Shambu wrote: “In the last decade, the single most powerful influence upon my cinephila has been the ever-intensifying realization of a central injustice in film culture: the marginalization of women in every single realm […]
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but having this guy hired to overhaul the voting standards of this prestigious poll gives us a lot of answers as to the results that we saw on Thursday.
Let me repeat, “Jeanne Dielman” is a great movie that might have made my own top 100, but it’s quite obvious that its surprising #1 spot was driven by many outside forces that stretch far beyond just quality.
I’ve been inspired. I’ve decided to pull a “Shambu” and completely overhaul my list of greatest all-time films …
ORIGINAL LIST
The Godfather Part 1&2
Bicycle Thieves
Sunrise
Vertigo
L’Avventura
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Rules of the Game
The Searchers
Mulholland Drive
Ordet
NEW LIST
The Piano
Jeanne Dielman
Seven Beauties
Cleo 5 a 7
Fish Tank
Beau Travail
The Hurt Locker
Lost in Translation
Do the Right Thing
Get Out
I honestly feel so much better now. You all should try to “Shambu” your lists as well, it’ll give your Monday more meaning and you’ll be able to tell yourselves you’ve contributed to the betterment of the cinematic world.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.