‘Men and women must fight together’

THE INTERNATIONAL Women’s Mentoring Breakfast is happening once again in Cannes.

The ninth edition of the event is organised by MIPTV with Paris-based MédiaClub’Elles; confirmed mentors include France Télévisions’ Caroline Behar; Upgrade Productions’ Caroline Kusser; Black Pear

Consulting’s Sarah Wright; Mounia

Aram; the UN’s Caroline Peitit; Collective Media Group’s rebecca Knight; Vice Media’s Bea Hegedus; and Blue Spirit’s Eleanor Coleman. MédiaClub’Elles founder and president, Florence Sandis, said recently that the organisation aims to include politicians in future events, to raise awareness of the numerous issues that women and girls face in different parts of the world.

To this end, in February of this year, Media Club’Elles organised a tribute to Iranian women in the light of recent unrest in Iran — where film producer and distributor Katayoon Shahabi spoke publicly on the subject for the first time.

“In other countries such as Iran or Afghanistan, where the political system depends on the ideology of radical men in power, woman’s rights are disregarded,” Shahabi told the MIPTV Magazine. “And today Iranian women are fighting for democracy. I strongly believe that the world is very much connected; so, the deprivation of women from their basic rights — such as education in Afghanistan — will at some point, affect the lives of those living in other parts of the world. That’s why men and women have to fight together against all types of discrimination, no matter where they come from.”

Working recently in France, Shahabi has observed that women in media are not always profiting from the same rights as men: “For instance, women have more difficulty negotiating their contracts