CANNES - The Lebanese director tipped to become only the second woman ever to win the top prize at the Cannes film festival will be very annoyed if her accolade is billed as the feminist choice of a #MeToo jury.

"There's a risk that some people would interpret it in that way, which would be very irritating because it would have the opposite effect. Instead of honoring women they'd be saying 'You're here because you're a woman'," said Nadine Labaki.

Labaki's "Capernaum" tells the story of a destitute Beirut boy who takes his parents to court for bringing him into a miserable existence.

The filmmaker's third feature, which won a 15-minute standing ovation at its premiere, catapults her into the big league after "Caramel", her intimate debut about a Beirut beauty parlor, and "Where Do We Go Now?", about women on a mission to end sectarian violence in their village.

This time the main protagonist is a foul-mouthed 12-year-old street kid.

Labaki said that in the past she found herself amplifying women's voices because "it was a subject I was more versed in than men" but "never really felt pressure to talk about women just because I am a woman."

"There are other things bothering me now," she said, citing the dense thicket of issues tackled in "Capernaum".

"I'm thinking of the notion of borders, of having to have papers to exist, of being completely excluded from the system if you don't have them, of the maltreatment of children, modern slavery, immigrant workers, Syrian immigrants - all these issues where people find themselves completely excluded from the system because it is not capable of finding solutions."

Labaki is lukewarm about the campaign for gender quotas in film casts and crews fronted by Hollywood actresses, including jury president Cate Blanchett, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

"It's not just because we decide that there should be parity in a given domain that it is truly merited. Whether it's a man or a woman it must be truly on merit."

She is only the second Arab woman to have a film in the running for the Palme d'Or, after Lebanon's Heiny Srour in 1974 (the year of Labaki's birth).

A win would make her the first female Arab director to lift top honors, and only the second woman, after Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993. - AFP