{"id":743,"date":"2018-05-06T17:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=743"},"modified":"2018-05-04T10:35:46","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T08:35:46","slug":"cannes-in-crisis-has-the-festival-learned-the-lessons-of-weinstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=743","title":{"rendered":"Cannes in crisis: has the festival learned the lessons of Weinstein?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">W<\/span><\/span>ith its outsize red carpet, compulsory sunglasses and auteur-worship, the\u00a0Cannes film festival\u00a0has been at the pinnacle of the international film festival circuit for decades. It somehow manages to shoehorn both movie-world glamour and austere artistic rigour into the same 10-day screening frenzy on France\u2019s C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, packing movie stars on to its gala premiere conveyor belt as well as bestowing the Palme d\u2019Or, one of the film industry\u2019s most prized and valuable awards. But for this year\u2019s edition, the 71st, Cannes is having to face up to the fact that business cannot go on as usual: the Harvey Weinstein scandal has seen to that.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element-rich-link--tag element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link-tag\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-tag\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\u00a0The film festival is now, in effect, a crime scene. Weinstein was one of Cannes\u2019 princes, a showman who used the festival as a personal fiefdom: buying and selling films, holding court to the press and public, and, it would now appear, using the festival as a private playground. A good number of the accusations against Weinstein are alleged to have taken place at Cannes \u2013 most notably\u00a0Asia Argento\u2019s allegation of rape, which she claimed took place in 1997 in his hotel room at the H\u00f4tel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the super-luxe hotel down the coast from Cannes where the A-list names go to avoid the festival hubbub.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Criticism of the festival\u2019s response to the scandal is not hard to find. Kate Muir, former chief film critic of the Times and now a screenwriter and activist with the\u00a0Time\u2019s Up campaign, sees a direct equivalence between the apparent tolerance for harassment and exploitation and the festival\u2019s seeming reluctance to select female film-makers for competition. \u201c\u201cCannes itself is a two-week celebration of male brains and female beauty, as a walk down the Croisette in the evening will attest,\u201d Muir says. \u201cMany wheelers, dealers and producers still parade with paid-for models or prostitutes on their arms, which makes female film-makers deeply uneasy about what, precisely, is valued by the money men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The chaotic, frantic nature of Cannes \u2013 as one massive film after another, three or four a day, unspools in the town\u2019s cinemas with all the attendant hangers-on and rubberneckers \u2013 can only work to a predator\u2019s advantage. New Zealand actor\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/bullies-assholes-i-have-known\/harvey-weinstein-and-i-at-the-hotel-du-cap-57e5883cde36\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Zoe Brock\u2019s description<\/a>\u00a0of her encounter with Weinstein \u2013\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2017\/oct\/10\/model-zoe-brock-tells-of-how-a-naked-harvey-weinstein-asked-her-for-a-massage\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">which Weinstein\u2019s representatives call \u201csaturated with false and defamatory statements\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 offers a flavour of the experience at its absolute top end: endless cocktail parties, limousines on permanent call, luxury hotel suites on standby. Brock also describes a culture of \u201cbro\u201d enablers that allowed the powerful to manipulate situations to their advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Now Weinstein has vanished \u2013 practically overnight \u2013 from Cannes, the festival has made some moves towards dealing with the Weinstein-shaped hole that has suddenly appeared.\u00a0It has set up a phone line to report incidents of sexual harassment, has\u00a0appointed Cate Blanchett as jury president, and plans to stage an event under the banner of 50\/50 2020 (France\u2019s answer to Time\u2019s Up) in which France\u2019s minister of culture Fran\u00e7oise Nyssen and festival artistic director Thierry Fr\u00e9maux will share a platform with international equality campaigners. But Cannes has seemingly failed to grasp the level of anger over the marginalisation of female film-makers: not only in its apparent eagerness to\u00a0overturn its own ban\u00a0on the director Lars von Trier \u2013 the subject of\u00a0harassment allegations from his Dancer in the Dark star Bj\u00f6rk\u00a0\u2013 but even more straightforwardly, its inability to increase its dismal record of programming female directors. Last year, before the #MeToo and Time\u2019s Up campaigns took hold, only three women were in competition: Sofia Coppola, Lynne Ramsay and Naomi Kawase. Twelve months later, out of 21 films in the competition, and after so much upheaval and uproar \u2026 again, three: Nadine Labaki, Eva Husson and Alice Rohrwacher.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline2\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--offset-right ad-slot--inline2 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline2\" data-name=\"inline2\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|300,274|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|300,274|fluid|300,600\" data-google-query-id=\"CJK4oLHS69oCFY4W4AodGfAGMA\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/film\/article\/ng_0__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\">Fr\u00e9maux has defended himself, stating: \u201cWe don\u2019t distinguish by gender in the selection.\u201d Muir isn\u2019t having any of that. \u201cThe core values of Cannes\u2019 ancien regime remain, so far, unchanged,\u201d she says. \u201cThe celebration of the male auteur above all; the marginalising of women\u2019s work.\u201d The statistics back her up: of the 179 films selected to compete so far this decade, only 18 have women directors: a sliver over 10%. The years\u00a02010 and 2012 had no women at all. Critic and author Agn\u00e8s Poirier, who is part of Cannes\u2019 informal pre-selection network, says this actually reflects the gender balance of the work submitted in the first place. \u201cCannes takes a lot of flak,\u201d she says. \u201cBut they have to work with what they have.\u201d She suggests the problem lies further back, in overcoming obstacles to getting projects off the ground in the first place. \u201cWe have reached gender parity in film schools, but there is still a problem with funding. It\u2019s still more difficult for women to make a first feature, and even more difficult to make the second. All the directors I know say that financiers are reluctant to entrust women with a bigger budget.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>That, however, is not the full story for Corrina Antrobus, founder of the\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/bechdeltestfest.com\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Bechdel Test Fest<\/a>, a film festival specifically designed as a showcase for films by and about women. \u201cI never buy the answer that there aren\u2019t enough films out there made by women. The problem does lie with the gatekeepers \u2013 of which Cannes is one \u2013 that are just not recognising they have to make more of an effort. The talent is there. If you are at the absolute top of the pile, as Cannes is, it\u2019s easy to neglect the power you have to make a healthier film culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are really turning a blind eye to all the work that\u2019s going on for women in film. They have the power; it would be nice to see them engaging with the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Antrobus does, however, back the festival for its plan to put on the live 50\/50 2020 event. \u201cWhen Bechdel Test Fest started [in 2015] there was a lot of talking and not much doing. I feel for the first time we are doing productive things \u2013 unfortunately, it has been because of the news of the Weinstein monstrosities. Film festivals are the perfect place \u2013 because all the film industry is in the same room, together. If not at a film festival, when?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Cannes\u2019 resolute defence of its old-school male auteurs is, for many in Time\u2019s Up, the other side of the same coin.\u00a0Fr\u00e9maux openly admitted he and festival president Pierre Lescure \u201cworked hard\u201d\u00a0to convince the Cannes board to readmit Von Trier, the director they banned in 2011 for making Nazi jokes, and who Bj\u00f6rk has\u00a0alleged made \u201cunwanted whispered sexual offers\u201d\u00a0when they worked together, (the company he co-founded in 1992 has also been subject to\u00a0multiple harassment allegations). Muir says: \u201cThat Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Lars von Trier are still feted regularly here leaves many ethical questions unanswered.\u201d Poirier suggests that, as far as Cannes is concerned, \u201cit\u2019s all about the film\u201d. \u201cPolanski might be an appalling man but he is a genius film director. The French really do distinguish between the man and the artist \u2013 it\u2019s the film they judge.\u201d It surely cannot be a coincidence that the most high-profile film-world names to have expressed their exasperation with #MeToo \u2013\u00a0Catherine Deneuve, Michael Haneke, Woody Allen and Terry Gilliam\u00a0\u2013 are all favourites at Cannes.<\/p>\n<p>Cannes\u2019 problems don\u2019t end there, however.\u00a0The festival has also found itself in confrontation with Netflix, which has refused to accept invitations to show any of its films after Fr\u00e9maux excluded them from the main competition; this was apparently due to Netflix not guaranteeing its films cinematic releases in France. This deprives Cannes of such films as Paul Greengrass\u2019s Anders Breivik biopic Norway, and Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s 70s-set family drama Roma, not to mention the recently restored Orson Welles film The Other Side of the World. But it also makes Cannes look good: the keeper of the arthouse flame, standing up to the cash-flashing new kids on the block. Poirier says Netflix was \u201ca bit silly\u201d not to accept out-of-competition slots \u2013 given that films of the calibre of Solo: A Star Wars Story find no problem screening there.\u00a0The standoff may or may not have ramifications for the wider industry, but would appear to chime with Cannes\u2019 current difficulties in attracting significant US participation, in the face of ever-increasing pressure from the autumn \u201cawards season\u201d \u2013 where likely films opt to save themselves for an early autumn launch at Venice or Toronto to try to gain Oscar momentum, rather than chance it in Cannes in late spring.<\/p>\n<p>Cannes may not have all its own way with Netflix, however. A younger generation is much less sniffy about streaming, and Cannes\u2019 stance may quickly come to look old-fashioned. Moreover, as Antrobus points out, Netflix has put its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting non-mainstream audiences and film-makers. \u201cNetflix are doing a really good job of diversifying our film culture,\u201d she says. \u201cStreaming platforms are helping a lot of film-makers of colour find audiences. A film like Mudbound would surely have found an audience on the big screen; however I have spoken to Dee Rees [the director] herself and know she is over the moon about how Netflix have looked after her and her work, and given her the opportunity to reach a wide audience.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"img-6\" class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--thumbnail fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" data-component=\"image\" data-media-id=\"5a56c18a8b7d289a3ea3be2cf8f8c89156f4b556\"><figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd it\u2019s also about those audiences that aren\u2019t lucky enough to go to a cinema. Cinemas are expensive, and there are so many communities across the world for whom Netflix is a vital platform for reaching any kind of screen art.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Cannes prides itself on its progressive vision, providing a showcase for films from overlooked corners of the film industry (Poirier calls it \u201can Olympic Games of cinema\u201d) this could well become the route to a compromise. The festival proudly announces its breakthroughs \u2013 this year, for the first time, a film from Kenya has made it to the Croisette \u2013 and it is easy to imagine Cannes and Netflix collaborating on some kind of outreach project, in areas with few if any cinemas.<\/p>\n<p>However, it hardly helps that the festival has contrived yet another confrontation, this time with its 4,000-strong press corps which, when all is said and done, sustains the festival\u2019s enormous media profile. By ending the tradition of morning press screenings \u2013 which regularly resulted in the trashing of high-profile films shortly before their glossy red-carpet premiere &#8211; Cannes seems to have antagonised all the critics at a stroke. It has also tilted the festival\u2019s balance \u2013 always a tricky push-pull \u2013 away from critical debate and towards a film-business love-in. Other festivals have solved the problem with an embargo system, which prevents reviews from being published until after the public premiere;\u00a0festival director Fr\u00e9maux\u2019s view is that the 1,200 or so critics who swarm into the early-morning preview cannot be contained.<\/p>\n<p>Until the scandal broke, Harvey Weinstein was a personification of Cannes, exemplifying an ugly energy:\u00a0brawling with his staff, intimidating the press, hustling his product on the street. Now he is gone, in what Fr\u00e9maux described as an \u201cearthquake\u201d, it remains to be seen whether some of the festival\u2019s overall energy has gone with him. On the face of it, Cannes is far bigger than one man, however individually powerful and influential he may be. But the bad taste of the Weinstein years will linger.<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2018\/may\/04\/cannes-crisis-lessons-weinstein-scandal<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With its outsize red carpet, compulsory sunglasses and auteur-worship, the\u00a0Cannes film festival\u00a0has been at the pinnacle of the international film festival circuit for decades. It somehow manages to shoehorn both movie-world glamour and austere artistic rigour into the same 10-day screening frenzy on France\u2019s C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, packing movie stars on to its gala premiere conveyor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}