Cannes Film Festival | Names of alleged feminicide victims appear on the red carpet

(Cannes) A ​​huge banner with the names of victims of feminicides in France was unfurled on the Cannes red carpet on Sunday by members of a feminist collective, “Les Colleuses”, in honor of a documentary presented in the afternoon on the Croisette.

Angélique, Évelyne, Sofya, Nadia, a woman… The names or identities of the 129 victims of feminicides in France, “since the last Cannes Film Festival” in July 2021, were displayed on the steps of the Festival. Dressed in black, the activists then posed, fists raised, before using smoke bombs, shrouding the red carpet in black smoke.

The scene was immortalized by photographer Raymond Depardon, whose son Simon made the documentary with Marie Perennès. Feminist responsewhich follows these activists sticking, often at night, messages on city walls to denounce gender-based violence, street harassment and bring messages of support to victims of sexual assault and feminicide.

Before the screening of the film, presented on Sunday in a special session, the gluers once again raised their fists when the director called out their first name.

“We are in black because we are in mourning”, explained the gluers to AFP after the screening, “We were not going to come to Cannes to pose, we did not want to climb the steps smiling, but like activists, not like actresses,” who hid the smoke bombs in their underwear.

“In fact, in Cannes, we reclaim space as we reclaim the street,” said Thaïs Caprio. “In fact, feminists are coming to Cannes and not just on the screen”.

Another feminist punch action scored 75^and Cannes Film Festival: an activist denouncing the rapes committed by Russians in Ukraine burst in, bare-chested and bloodstained panties, on Friday on the red carpet, before being stopped by the security services. The action was then claimed on Twitter by the Scum movement, which defines itself as “radical” feminist.