Deepika Padukone, Catherine Deneuve discuss women in films at Mumbai Film Festival

"Women characters often don't have much to do in Martin Scorcese's films. That could perhaps have a lot to do with the fact that he is both Italian and American," said MAMI 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award winner French actress Catherine Deneuve eliciting much laughter and applause from the audience during a discussion between her and Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone, moderated by columnist-critic Anupama Chopra.

The discussion opened a rarely-seen side of the veteran actress' career at the discussion conducted on the sidelines of the second-day screenings at MAMI. The two actors, who have little in common, shared their experiences on a large spectrum of issues, from the personal to professional, and their opinions on the difference between cinema in India, Europe and the rest of the world.

Padukone said she wouldn't ever direct but was willing to take on production responsibilities, which took care of what the crew ate, where they stayed and how long they worked for. "I don't want to be the one taking the financial calls," she said, only to have Deneuve cut in, "I don't think the producers do that anymore. It's the banks and corporates who've taken over."

Both spoke of the pressures women in the film industry have to face. "There is always pressure to look beautiful even if you are not feeling like it on a particular day," said Deneuve. Padukone agreed. "We are expected not to take it easy even a single day without being judged."

While Padukone insisted things were looking up for women with "more realistic and relatable roles" being written, she admitted: "The Rs100-200-crore club will continue to grow as long as there is a market for films like that out there."

Proud that France has a tradition of doing both socially relevant and women-centric films, Deneuve said: "Perhaps things are different because unlike the US or India, we don't have to worry as much about the box office in Europe," said the actor who was once described by French actor Gerard Depardieu as "the man I want to be".

Both actors admitted that they found it baffling that the popular and good didn't often coincide in cinema. "Often a film I did not think was great would do well and the ones which I thought were okay did brilliantly," remembered Denevue.

Today's lineup represented a true melting pot of cultures when Hiroshi Toda's Japanese film 'Early Spring, Kyoto', Dietrich Brüggemann's German film 'Stations of the Cross', Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne's 'Two Days, One Night', introduced by actor Imran Khan, Rolf de Heer's 108-minute Australian film 'Charlie's Country', and 'Still The Water' directed by Naomi Kawase, were screened at Chandan Cinema.

PVR Andheri saw screenings of Greek film 'Playing with Fire' directed by Anneta Papathanasiou, and Gabe Polsky's, Russian-American film 'Red Army', besides the delectable blend of world cinema that comprised Argentinean film 'Refugiado' directed by Diego Lerman, Chinese film 'Norjmaa' directed by Bayaneruul Bayaneruul, and 'Clownwise', a 2013 film by director Viktor Taus.

This year's festival took exchange of cinema to another level and played host to some defining meetings at the Films Remakes Market organised by UniFrance Films and La Fabrique Films in cooperation with the Mumbai Film Festival. Keeping in mind the tastes of Indian audiences, a selection of films presented to Indian producers included 'Serial (Bad) Weddings', 'In the Courtyard', 'Homeland', 'Not My Type', 'Where Do We Go Now?' and 'Superchondriac'.

A Hindi film that particularly stood out was Mrityunjay Devvrat's 'Children of War', introduced by acclaimed filmmaker Hansal Mehta under Directors Choice. Indian director Khalid Mohammed's ode to veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, through the film 'The Master Shyam Benegal', proved to be a refreshing walk down memory lane.