(Cannes) While the stars paraded on the red carpet Tuesday evening – Emmanuelle Béart, Xavier Dolan, Jane Fonda, and of course Meryl Streep, who received an honorary Palme d’Or from the hands of Juliette Binoche –, the shadow of #metoo loomed over the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival.
The French women say in turn Me too, title of the 17-minute short film by Judith Godrèche which will premiere this Wednesday on the Croisette. In February, the French actress and filmmaker, who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct in 2017, filed a complaint against filmmakers Jacques Doillon and Benoît Jacquot.
PHOTO LEWIS JOLY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
French actress and filmmaker Judith Godrèche
His testimony as well as a video by Gérard Depardieu which allowed the general public to finally understand the full (grotesque) extent of the character seem to have been the spark plugs for the current wave of denunciations in the world of French cinema. Depardieu will have a trial in October.
The French, it must be said, arrived at the #metoo movement seven years behind the Americans, and after a few false starts. A year ago, 13 women had already accused Depardieu of sexual violence on film sets, as part of a Mediapart investigation. The actress Adèle Haenel had, in the same media, accused the filmmaker Christophe Ruggia of having attacked her as a teenager. Without France being overly moved by it.
After the #balancetonporc movement, the French are now throwing out names. And they are controversial in Cannes. Several media, including Le Figarorevealed that many organizations that finance French cinema had received in anticipation of the Cannes Film Festival a list of ten names of actors, directors and producers who would be targeted by accusations of sexual assault.
Some have suggested that this famous list was the result of a new investigation by Mediapart. However, it is not. The digital media categorically denied this information, attributing the rumor to a conspiratorial account on social networks which tries to discredit the French #metoo movement.
The fact remains that #metoo has been discussed at all press conferences at the Cannes Film Festival so far. On Monday, general delegate Thierry Frémaux expressed the hope that no controversy would take over his selection of films and promised that the Festival would not fuel controversy. He did not allude to it directly, but we can assume that he was referring to the selection, at the opening of the event last year, of Jeanne du Barry by Maïwenn, starring a certain Johnny Depp…
He seemed irritated when a French journalist asked him what the Festival was planning if a contentious case linked to #metoo arose. Iris Knobloch, president of the Cannes Film Festival, said last week that possible allegations of sexual misconduct targeting the producers, directors or actors of the films in the selection would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
PHOTO STEPHANE MAHE, REUTERS
The general delegate and president of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux and Iris Knobloch
The general delegate, we understand well, has no use for controversies. He expects journalists to talk to him exclusively about cinema. ” I You speak solidarity with women and workers and YOU me talk tracking and close-up! », Godard would have replied to him in May 1968…
Thierry Frémaux, obviously, has no control over current events. According to a survey published Monday in the magazine Sheproducer Alain Sarde (The pianist, Mullholland Drive) is accused by nine actresses of having assaulted them when they were young, even minors.
The same day, around a hundred members of the French film industry, including Judith Godrèche, gathered in front of the National Cinema Center to demand, like more than 500 signatories of a petition, the departure of its president Dominique Boutonnat, who will be tried in June for sexual assault on his godson. He was reappointed to his post in 2022 by the Council of Ministers, despite the accusations against him.
Tuesday, certainly to coincide with the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, an article was published in The world, signed by 150 personalities and illustrated by photographs of one hundred women victims of sexual assault, calling for the adoption of a “comprehensive law” against sexual and gender-based violence. This is, clearly, the end of omerta.
“There is only good in the fact that speech is freed; I noticed it in the United States,” declared at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon the president of the competition jury, the actress and filmmaker Greta Gerwig (Little Women, Barbie).
PHOTO YARA NARDI, REUTERS
Greta Gerwig
“There have been a lot of concrete changes in American industry,” she added. The one I think about often is the arrival of intimacy coordinators on film sets. It didn’t exist when I was young. To me, he’s like a stunt or fight coordinator. They are there to make sure the environment is safe. You wouldn’t let two actors fight with swords without having prepared them! Fortunately, the conversation continues. »
“Knowing that there are more and more women who have the courage to say things is a good sign,” also believes French actor and competition juror Omar Sy. Indeed, we can consider that it is late, but today, there is a conversation that is there. There are people who are speaking out. »
Finally, we listen to them.