VIDEO : Sofia Coppola Won Big at Cannes

Sofia Coppola May Have Won Big at Cannes But There's Still a Long Way to Go for Female Directors. It's been 56 years since a woman won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. For only the second time ever in the history of the Cannes, a woman has won the award for Best Director. Sofia Coppola earned the title for her film, The Beguiled, but the last time a woman snagged the award was way back in 1961, when Russian director Yuliya Solntseva won for The Story of the Flaming Years.