The French director returns for the third time in competition. His new feature film is preceded by a controversy, in particular around accusations relating to the behavior of the filmmaker during the shooting.
Second day of the Cannes Film Festival and second controversy, after that linked to the film Jeanne du Barry by Maïwenn. After Repetition in 2001 and The divide in 2021, the French director Catherine Corsini presents in competition The return, Wednesday, May 17. The Cannes course of the first tricolor film in the running for the Palme d’or of this 76th edition has been eventful. First dismissed at the last moment from the official selection, announced on April 13 by the general delegate Thierry Frémaux, he was reinstated a few days later.
Franceinfo explains the controversy surrounding this feature film in which the character of Khedidja, embodied by Aïssatou Diallo Sagna returns to Corsica for a summer with her two teenage daughters who are going to live their first love experiences.
Accusations brought about the conditions of filming
The shooting of Catherine Corsini’s twelfth film took place in Corsica, where the filmmaker is from, in the fall of 2022. Heavy suspicions weigh on its progress: anonymous accusations relating to working conditions and gestures displacements of two members of the team on young actresses have been reported by articles of the Parisianof World, of Release and of Telerama. At first, the producer of the film, Elisabeth Perez, admitted in The Parisian “tensions on the set, as on all sets, but no verbal or physical violence on the part of Catherine, nor in general on the set.
After the announcement by the Festival of the presence of the film in official competition, the producer and the director published a press release to try to extinguish the controversy. They denounced “anonymous and defamatory emails [qui] were sent to the entire profession and to the press, helping to create an extraordinarily damaging rumor for the film”.
However, press articles on the subject have reported that the Central Committee for Hygiene, Safety and Working Conditions for Film Production intervened during the filming at the request of the social partners. An investigation was conducted and a report drafted.
Facing the press, the director claims an abrupt method. “I find that the new generation no longer has the same energy, the same desire as the ‘elders’ with whom I used to work. Of course, I am demanding on a set, with my actors as well as with my team. I’m here to shake them up.” she thinks in Corsica Morning. “I find that young people are no longer ‘punk’ enough, but rather straddle principles or schedules. When you choose to work on an auteur film, it’s a luxury and above all a fight. We have to believe and never give up!”
A CNC grant withdrawn for an undeclared sexual scene
The film was also the subject of a rare measure: the National Cinema Center (CNC) deprived it of its financial support, because a scene involving a minor had not been declared to a commission responsible for studying requests for filming with children, the organization confirmed to AFP. “This breach of social law is materially constituted and is not denied by the producer” of the movie, and “the CNC is therefore required to withdraw the aid”, observed the institution. In total, the film had received 680,000 euros in aid out of a budget of 4.7 million.
Asked by AFP, the Paris prosecutor’s office said that a report denouncing in particular sexualized scenes with adolescents had been sent in November 2022 to the brigade for the protection of minors. “for the first checks which consist in determining the legal qualifications of the facts denounced and the competent public prosecutor’s office”.
“We made an administrative error by not declaring the scene of intimacy”confessed the producer to the Parisian. According to her, the sequence was “rewritten from a first version and added at the time of filming”and she forgot to declare it. “It’s a scene that the actors, aged 15 and 17, played in a completely consented and completely simulated way”she clarified.. “In this one, the female character caresses the male character, but we only filmed the faces, so in reality the actors are not touching.” In their press release, the producer and the director asked to stop “fantasies”.
“The teenagers were dressed and the scene is filmed on the faces. There was no inappropriate touching or contact between the two of them.”
Catherine Corsini and Elisabeth Perez, director and producer of the film “Le Retour”in a press release
The press release also includes a testimony from the young actress, Esther Gohourou, who was 15 and a half years old during the filming. She says she wants “end this story” and specifies that he refused, like his 17-year-old partner, the use of doubles and an intimacy coach offered by the filmmaker. “We knew what we were going to have to shoot, that we would only see the faces and that we wouldn’t have to touch each other in real life. And that’s what happened. Some people called the high school social worker to say things that had nothing to do with what happened”she concludes. “Harold [l’autre jeune comédien] I’m fine and I’m fine.”
A place in the official selection that is debating
The film was to be present in the official list announced on April 13. But these two cases delayed the process. “The selection of the film has not been canceled, but the board of directors wanted to know more about the situation of the work”explained the festival to the Parisian the day after the presentation of the selection. Finally, a few days later, the film was well reinstated in competition.
A return from Feedback praised by the director and the producer: “It is fortunate that the biggest festival in the world has taken the time [de] carefully check the veracity [des rumeurs autour du film].” “There are no complaints of any kind filed against Catherine Corsini, nor against the production of the film. The only irregularity observed (…), which we recognized very early on, is an administrative breach, that of an undeclared scene and therefore not covered by the Commission des enfants du spectacle”, they defended themselves.
But the presence of the film on the Croisette, this prestigious showcase, is disturbing. The 50/50 collective, which works for parity, equality and diversity in cinema and audiovisual, notably denounced in a press release “a devastating signal sent to victims of gender-based and sexual violence” as well as’“a way of strengthening the collusion that reigns in [l’industrie du cinéma]and which prevent the peaceful release of speech on this crucial subject.
The microcosm of French cinema has also stirred. Marc Missonier, book adaptation producer The consent, produced by vanessa filhosharply criticized, on Twitter, the film and the festival. “[Il] has therefore decided to ignore all the alerts and breaches characterized (…). It is today knowingly (…) that Thierry Frémaux chooses to take a problematic film in competition, spitting in the face of all those who might have the courage to denounce reprehensible facts, and finally considering that it is not so serious. (…) As far as I’m concerned, my choice is made: #BoycottCannes.”
Before the opening of the big cinema raout, the general delegate Thierry Frémaux gave an update on this “fairly complex story” about which the festival proceeded to “a week-long investigation”.
“I don’t know what could have happened on this shoot, not as much as we said, we are still between the witchcraft trial and the rumor of Orleans.”
Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festivalon France Inter
“I told the production and the director: ‘defend yourself because we’re going to get your accusers’, and we asked the accusers, who we don’t know and who haven’t come forward, to do it… Well, so I think everything will be back to normal, the film is very, very good”he concluded.