Did Cannes go to all of us politicians? The French Film Festival, which was proud, sometimes for a fault, being the apolitical festival “Cinema for cinema”, seems to take the barricades.
The 78th festival presented one of the most political openness ceremonies of living memory. In his speech, accepting an honorary palm of gold, Robert de Niro castigated US President Donald Trump, calling him “American Philistin President” and joining the public to “act now … without violence, but with great passion and determination” to defend democracy. “It is time for all those who care about the freedom to organize, to protest, and when there are elections, vote. Vote. Tonight, and for the next 11 days, we show our strength and our commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival. Freedom, equality, fraternity. ”
The animator of the ceremony, the French actor Laurent Lafitte, delivered a similar and very political discourse, calling the actors to use their public platform to make real changes. He checked the name of James Stewart, Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, Adèle Haenel and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (whom Lafitte called an actor who has become a leader of war), as artists who have had a positive influence on questions such as climate change, equity, racism, immigration, gay rights and more.
The president of Cannes, the Oscar -winning actress Juliette Binoche, continued in a similar vein, claiming that the artists had a duty to call the abuses of war, climatic disturbances, misogyny and “demons of our barbarities”.
The political tone was set on the eve of the festival, when more than 350 world cinema figures, including Richard Gere, Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon, published an open letter on the France’s website Release The newspapers condemning what they called the “silence and indifference” of the world cinematographic community towards the deadly impact of the Military Campaign in the course of Israel in Gaza. The letter was discussed “for Fatem” in memory of the 25 -year -old Gaza artist and photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the subject of septusi’s documentary Farsi Put your soul on your hands and walkWho made his debut in Cannes on Thursday evening. Fatima was killed on April 16 in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza, alongside 10 family members.
The twice the winners of Palme d’On Ken Loach and Paul Laverty shared the letter on social networks and called the international cinematographic community in Cannes to defend peace.
“For a few days, the attention of the world rests on Cannes while the filmmakers of many countries are doing their best to give meaning to what is happening around them,” reads their article. “Cannes has a tradition of engagement in the affairs of the day, and some still have living memories of the events of 1968”, remembering the last time that a Cannes Festival seemed as politically loaded as this year.
In the war in Ukraine, Cannes clearly indicated it, devoting the opening day of the festival, on May 13, to the Ukrainian people in their continuous fight against the Russian invasion. The festival has projected three documentaries, apart from its official selection, who examine one of the key characters in the conflict – ZelenskyWho follows the life of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – and on life on the front line. Oscar -winning director Mstyslav Chernov (20 days in Mariupol)) 2000 meters in Andriivka sees the director anchored with a Ukrainian peloton as they accelerate by trying to release the strategic village of Andriivka. Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel Our warwas filmed on the Pokrovsk and Soumy fronts in eastern Ukraine between February and April this year.
The #MeToo movement, which was given in the short term at past festivals – there was no glance from the festival when Johnny Depp, who had faced charges of domestic violence, traveled the red carpet in 2023 for the night film opening Jeanne du Barry – is in the center of Cannes this year. On the same day as the Cannes opening evening, the French star Gérard Depardieu received an 18 -month suspended sentence for sexual assault and Binoché credited #MeToo the moment of the watershed for the calculation of French industry with institutional abuse.
In an unprecedented decision, the festival prohibited Thero Navarro-Mussy from walking the red carpet Thursday evening for the competition film of Dominik Moll File 137Because the French actor faces accusations of rape and sexual assault. Three former partners accused Navarro-Mussy of “rape, physical and psychological violence”. A court rejected the initial criminal complaint, but the alleged victims said they were planning to file a civil affair.
The Cannes general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, defended the prohibition, claiming that the festival had to ensure that “security, integrity and dignity” of all the people involved in the films it projects.
It should be noted that allegations against Navarro-Mussy are not linked to File 137 and predates the filming of the film.
Given all this new activism, it seemed incongruous that, before the festival, the organizers of Cannes published more strict internal guidelines, asking their own staff to maintain “political neutrality” in their interactions with guests and on social networks. The directive, a new addition to the standard protocol, intervenes as labor activists of the unofficial union of temporary workers of the festival, under Lescrans la Dèche, organized demonstrations during the opening evening on working conditions.
Some also see a difference between calls for freedom, equality and fraternity and their fashion for the red carpet. Festival officials confirmed that this year, he had prohibited the full nudity and the “bulky outfits” of his gala, in particular the dresses with a large train, which “hinder the circulation of customers and complicate seats in the theater”. A festival spokesperson said that the dress code is not intended to regulate the outfit of “in itself” outfit, but that it has been refreshed to reflect certain rules “which have long been in force”.
But it was a strangely conservative measure of a festival which, at least this year, seems to evoke the Sprit of ’68.
