Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain has given the movie industry a lot to think about, slamming the Cannes films for its lack of pro-active female characters.

In the war for equal representation on screen, there are many battles to be fought. Speaking specifically about the representation of women, we need not only to think about how many female characters there are in relation to men (already a huge struggle) but also: how many are women of color? How many are on the LGBTQ+ spectrum? And what roles do they actually fulfill in the narrative?

Related: More Hidden Figures: Heroic women of color we want to see on screen

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Jessica Chastain made an interesting observation regarding the latter point, remarking at a press conference Sunday that she found the 2017 line-up’s portrayal of women “quite disturbing” due to the female characters’ lack of agency.

Said Chastain:

I do believe that if you have female storytelling you also have more authentic female characters. This is the first time I’ve watched 20 films in 10 days, and I love movies. And the one thing I really took away from this experience is how the world views women, from the female characters that I saw represented. It was quite disturbing to me, to be honest.”

Chastain believes that with more female storytellers, the movie industry will be able to portray, “more of the women that I recognize in my day-to-day life. Ones that are proactive, have their own agencies, don’t just react to the men around them. They have their own point of view.”

The actress was visibly affected when speaking at the panel. Watch the video, via the incredible Ava DuVernay:

Indeed, even when movies include ‘strong’ female characters at the center of the narrative, more often than not they are reactionary to the main male character(s), their actions specifically to help or hinder the men around them.

More women in the cast line-up, main female characters and a closer adherence to the Bechdel Test (making sure that female characters interact with each other, the content of their scenes about something other than the male characters) might be the first steps to fix this problem. And, of course, actual female writers, directors and producers making sure female characters are being treated like human beings, not props in the male characters’ stories.

At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Sofia Coppola won the award for best director with The Beguiled — making her only the second woman in the festival’s 71-year-history to claim this prestigious honor.