Cannes 2025: Guneet Monga and Tillotama Shome on The Importance Of Access for Mid-Career Producers

Guneet Monga and Tillotama Shome are at the Cannes International festival this year, not with a film, but with a mightier purpose. Monga, the Academy Award-winning producer, recently launched Women In Film India, an initiative that grants fellowships to three rising producers from India to participate in the Producers Network at the Cannes Film Market. The participants from India include Shome, who was one of the producers of the Berlinale selection Shadowbox (2025), studio executive and creative producer Rucha Pathak, and independent producer Dimpy Agarwal.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Shome tells us why such initiatives are important, especially for mid-career women. “What happens to women in their 40s is that you’re forced to vanish. That’s unacceptable. By 2025, there will be so many women in their menopause, in their mid-40s, in our country alone. Are we saying their stories don’t matter? When Guneet came and said this scholarship was for mid-career producers, it resonated with a need,” she says.

Monga notes that it’s been her dream to launch a collective and support system in a bid to give back to emerging producers. “The first time I ever came to Cannes was under a scholarship with IFP in New York. I was in the Producers Network in 2011, and it changed my life because I was with a bunch of producers being mentored at breakfast meetings. As a result of that, I was able to step up and understand a co-production and put together and structure Lunchbox (2014).”

If there is even a little bit they can do to push these incredible women producers and directors, they will do it, she adds. “We are less than 4 per cent of directors. There’s so much to do in every department to begin with. We don’t even have a database. We don’t know if we’re 50 or 50,000 or 500,000 together. Which section across the spectrum needs support or mentorship? This is a very broad stroke introduction, but it is a form of up-skilling, especially for mid-career women and men.” The Producers Network breakfast has 14 tables led by one mentor each, in an attempt to guide the 140 participants. “The three of them got three tables covered,” she adds.

Shome, who turned producer with Shadowbox, believes the new skill has made her a better actor in a sense. “Involving an actor to be part of these kinds of decisions and to have this kind of information makes you a part of creating a solution when there’s a problem. As opposed to feeling like ‘Why am I waiting here?’ and ‘Why are the dates changing?’ What Guneet is fighting so hard to do is get us into a room we might not be eligible for because we don’t have experience. But if you don’t get us into the room, we’ll never skill up.”