On the evening of May 16, local time, the 76th Cannes Film Festival was grandly opened. A group of judges, including Ruben Osterlund and Brie Larson, Max Mikkelsen and his wife Hanni Jacobson, this year's Palme d'Or winner Mike Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, Johnny Depp, Uma Thurman and his son Levin Hawke, Elle Fanning, Pang Clementev, and Chinese filmmakers Gong Li, Zhu Yilong and Wei Shu all appeared on the opening red carpet. The day before, the festival's artistic director Thierry Fumao held a media meeting as usual to publicly respond to many controversial issues of concern to the outside world.
Group photo of the jury of the main competition unit of the 76th Cannes Film Festival
"The Countess of Dubarry" creator Maiwin was accused of beating
Looking back at the history of the Cannes Film Festival, while it is regarded as the highest hall of art film, it is almost inevitable that it will be accompanied by various controversies and scandals from time to time. In recent years, with Hollywood's emphasis on political correctness and pluralism, journalists have become increasingly accustomed to judging Cannes' every move by American standards. In some places, the criticism is indeed quite justified and deserves to continue to improve at Cannes; But in some places, it is inevitable that onlookers feel a little too demanding, and even deliberately pursue topicality and network traffic.
At this year's Cannes Film Festival, as early as the first batch of film lists were announced, the American media made a big fuss about the opening film "Jeanne du Barry". The film is starring Johnny Depp, who was once on the Hollywood blacklist. Although juries and courts in the United States last year ruled that his ex-wife, actor Amber Hurd, accused him of being a "domestic violence man" is indeed malicious slander, the American media does not seem willing to remove him from the blacklist - but from another point of view, in 2018, the British High Court ruled against Depp, believing that it was not inappropriate for The Sun to call him a "domestic violence man" - and questioned why Cannes let the movie starring "domestic violence man" be the opening film. Amber Hurd's journalist friend Eve Barlow also launched a boycott of Cannes on social media, accusing Cannes of being an accomplice to sexual assault and violence for the past 76 years.
"The Countess of Dubarry" stills, Johnny Depp as Louis XV
Not surprisingly, a meeting between the judges of the main competition unit and the media was held on the opening day. Bry Larson was also asked if Depp's "Countess Dubarry" as a supporter of the anti-sexual assault movement would go to see Depp. As a result, Larson blocked the problem back with an angry "I'll see it, you'll know then."
To make matters worse, not long ago, French filmmaker Maïwenn, the director and star of "The Countess of Dubarry", was also taken to court for allegedly beating someone. Therefore, some media believe that choosing it as the opening film, but not letting it participate in the Palme d'Or competition, is it because the director beat someone to become a defendant, which really made the organizers have some scruples?
"Countess Dubarry" director McWin and starring Johnny Depp on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet
For such a view, Fumao advised the media not to be forgetful, because last year's opening film "Zombies Don't Stop" did not enter the main competition unit, so there is nothing surprising at all, and the choice of "Countess Dubarry" as this year's opening film was decided a long time ago, when McWin's accusation had not happened at all. And it was just a private matter between the two parties, and it had nothing to do with her film or Cannes.
However, it was not the unknown who accused McWin this time, but Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief and founder of the French ace online media Mediapart. The seventy-year-old worked as a reporter for Le Monde as a young man, then rose through the ranks to the position of editor-in-chief, resigned and founded the paid news website Mediapart, known for its independent stance without any advertising ("Only our readers can buy us" is the signature slogan of the site), currently has more than 200,000 paid subscribers, has participated in many cases involving the governments of Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron over the years, has high social credibility, and is also very influential in the industry.
"The Countess of Dubarry" was written, directed and acted by McWin
On March 7, Planel reported to the Paris police that McWin had beaten him in a restaurant on February 22 and spat in his face. According to Planell, he suspects that the other party did this because Mediapart had written a lot of reports about the alleged rape of his ex-husband Luc Besson in his early years.
Of course, compared to McWin, the American media is more concerned about Depp. At the media meeting on May 15, the topic was quickly brought up by reporters. In the face of skepticism, Mr. Fumao dismissively said that there was no necessary connection between Depp's public image and the failure to screen the films he starred in at Cannes. "What kind of image he has in the minds of the American people, I'm not sure. I only know one thing, I, as a person, have recognized one truth all my life: freedom of speech, freedom of thought within the framework of the law. So I don't think there's anything to argue that Johnny Depp didn't break any law and was banned from making movies by the court. In our case, only judicial decisions are taken. If I'm not mistaken, he was the one who won the case. Besides, this movie is not about his own story, he is just one of the actors. And I only care about Depp as an actor, not his private life. ”
McWin was married to Luc Besson
The starring of "Portrait of a Burning Woman" posted an article accusing Cannes
In addition to the controversy over the opening film, the criticism of the Cannes Film Festival by the famous French actress Adele Haenel was also the focus of this media conference.
The 34-year-old Adela Hahnelben is a sought-after young actor in the French film industry, who has won the César Award for French films twice in the past, and three years ago won the attention of the world film industry with "Portrait of a Burning Woman".
In 2019, Adela Haenel participated in the Cannes Film Festival with "Portrait of a Burning Woman"
In late 2019, Harnell publicly accused director Christophe Ruggia of harassing her several times during her three years between the ages of 12 and 15. In response to this accusation, Lucia, who has been the president of the French Directors Guild for a long time because of his enthusiasm for public welfare, naturally denied it, but was eventually removed from the table by the Directors Guild. Soon after, the French judiciary, after receiving formal allegations from Hahnel, opened a case to investigate the case. However, more than three years have passed now, and whether the case has been established or dropped, and whether Lucchia is innocent or guilty, the procrastinating French prosecution has never given any information.
At the 2020 César Awards ceremony, Hahnel left the venue angry because Polanski had won the award
Just a month after Adela Hanel officially accused Lucia, the 45th French Film César Awards were grandly held, and after announcing Roman Polanski for winning the best director award for "I Accuse", Haenel who attended the meeting angrily got up and left the table, shouting "Shame!" "You pedophiles, it's amazing!" and other words. Since then, Harnell has not appeared in any film and has transformed into a stage actor in the past three years. Moreover, she has been interested in left-wing ideas since she was a child, and a lot of her time in her spare time has been spent participating in various social movements, and she has often been seen in various women's movements and trade union movements on the streets of Paris in the past three years.
On May 9, just one week before the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, Adela Haenel published an open letter in French TV Weekly, aiming the fierce fire on the entire French film industry and confirming that she had withdrawn from the film industry, as a protest against the intolerance and evil forces of the French film industry. In the article, the Cannes Film Festival is also classified by her into the French film ecosystem, and she condemns these high-ranking French filmmakers, who do not care about female victims and the anti-sexual assault movement, but hold people like Gérard Depardieu, Roman Polanski, Dominique Boutonnat in the palm of her hand. As a result, in her writing, the Cannes Film Festival has also become a "rapist's film festival", and does not pay any attention to the real contradictions in society, in order to maintain their own order, they must have prepared various means, including the mobilization of police forces to maintain law and order.
Among the three men mentioned by Adela Haenel, actor Gérard Depardieu, who is world-famous for works such as "Big Nose Love", has been accused of misdeeds against actresses on the film shooting scene many times in recent years; In 2018, he was accused of rape under his real name, but the French prosecution has not reached a clear conclusion on these cases for several years. On the other hand, the great director Polanski absconded to Europe after being arrested on bail for having sex with minors. Since then, he has been wanted by the US government and does not dare to set foot on American soil again, and the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Technology has removed him in 2018.
Compared with the above two, Dominic Budona's name is relatively unfamiliar to the outside world. The 53-year-old has been the director of the French Film Bureau (CNC) since 2019 and was re-elected for three years last year for his contribution to helping the film and television industry fight the coronavirus pandemic. However, in 2020, a young man accused Budona, his godfather, of raping him. Budona denied this, and the Nantes prosecution department has already launched an investigation, but to this day there is no follow-up to the case, and the French Minister of Culture Malak, who supports him to continue to serve as director of the film bureau, also stressed that as long as the court does not make a verdict for a day, Budona is innocent.
Adèle Haenel's shouts against Cannes, Fumao naturally cannot turn a blind eye. In the face of the reporter's question, he uncompromisingly asked the participating reporters, asking them to touch their hearts and ask themselves: Do you really think that the Cannes Film Festival has become a paradise for rapists? "If you really think that this is a film festival for rapists, you wouldn't have come to this press conference today, you wouldn't have come to listen to me, and you wouldn't have complained about how Cannes tickets are so hard to grab."
Fumao said that he can fully understand Adèle Haenel's radical approach, which is out of the hope of using the Cannes platform to create news to attract more social attention. But as far as the statement itself is concerned, he thinks it is pure nonsense, because "when she came to Cannes herself, she must not have thought so, otherwise she must have been crazy to say one thing and do another". In the past, following the crews of "120 Strikes Per Minute" and "Portrait of a Burning Woman", Haenel has twice stepped on the Cannes red carpet.
The shortlisted works of female directors in the main competition unit reached a new high
Fumao's entire media meeting lasted nearly an hour. Interestingly, the so-called discrimination against female directors, which has been repeatedly mentioned in the American media in the past few years, has not been mentioned by journalists this year.
As for the reason, it is actually very simple, out of a total of 21 films participating in the main competition unit this year, 7 works by female directors have reached a new high in Cannes' history, including Jessica Hausner's "Club Zero", Kaussel Ben Hanier's "Daughters of Olefa", Jousten Trier's "Anatomy of Falling Death", Aliche Roervacher's "Chimera", Catherine Brea's "Last Summer", Ramata Toraye Hi's "Benel and Adama" and The Return by Katrin Corsini. Coupled with the Americans' own Oscars, there is only one female director nominated this year, and there is not a single woman nominated for Best Director, and the American media has to harshly criticize Cannes for how to discriminate against female directors, I am afraid it still has less confidence.
Exterior view of the Palais de la Cines de Cannes 2023. The official poster character of this year's Cannes Film Festival is Catherine Deneuve. This photograph is from the set of the film La Chamade (1968).
In fact, the French have always done a better job than Americans when it comes to equal rights for men and women and career opportunities for female directors. According to new data from the French Film Agency, of the 208 films completed with French government subsidies in 2022, one-third (69) are female directors, setting a new record; That's a big step up from a quarter of what it was in 2013, a decade ago. Among these 69 female directorial works, the most expensive to produce is McWin's "The Countess of Dubarry", which is about $22.4 million.
Of course, on the whole, even in France, female directors still have fewer opportunities to stand out than their male counterparts, and the average production cost of female directors' works is much lower than that of male directors; And this year's French Film César Awards have also been criticized by the outside world because the nominees for Best Director are all men.
Another data released by the French Film Bureau at the same time may be more illustrative. In the nearly two decades from 2003 to 2022, the number of French female directors who directed at least one film reached 628, compared with 1,832 male directors, about a third. But the problem is that of these 628 people, only 22 have directed more than two film works, and the remaining 606 female directors have disappeared from their directorships after shooting their only or only works. In the case of male directors, there are as many as 138 people who have made more than two films in 20 years, which is six times that of female directors.
Further analysis, in the past two decades, the ratio of male directors to female directors who have directed more than ten films has reached 13:1 - only a female director, Anne Fontaine, has directed a total of 12 works during this period, including "Fashion Pioneer Chanel" and "The New Madame Bovary".