Throughout its 78-year history, the Cannes Film Festival has been "criss-crossed by the political struggles of its time", said Le Monde.
Yet 2024 promises to be a particularly dramatic iteration of the annual festival of cinema, with "every misstep, or supposed misstep, tarnishing the duty of exemplarity that its status imposes", the paper added.
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France's #MeToo moment
The sword of Damocles hovering over the run-up to Cannes 2024 has been the rumoured circulation of a "secret list" of alleged abusers in the film industry, said The Guardian. The list has been "described as 'explosive'", and Cannes organisers have "set up a crisis management team" in case the names are published during the festival.
The aftershocks of the #MeToo movement are still reverberating through the industry and particularly in France, where the fallout "has been slower and more nuanced than in America", said The Guardian.
Festival organisers have attempted to tread the fine line of directing focus on the artistic programme without fanning the flames by appearing to silence the conversation. French actor Judith Godreche, who earlier this year accused two directors of raping her as a teenager, will be premiering her #MeToo-inspired short film "Moi Aussi" at Cannes.
The jury is chaired by "Barbie" director Greta Gerwig, and includes Eva Green, "one of the more prominent actors to have accused Harvey Weinstein of making inappropriate advances" said The Guardian. Also, setting a "more progressive tone", Meryl Streep, British director Andrea Arnold and Universal Studios chair Donna Langley are to receive major achievement awards this year.
Lights, camera, strike
"Labour unrest is also on the horizon," said Variety. A collective representing hundreds of festival employees is calling for strike action to protest upcoming changes to French labour laws "that will see their unemployment indemnities slashed by more than half".
At a pre-opening cocktail party for festival staff, attendees clapped and cheered the group's leader, while members of the collective distributed stickers and badges drawing attention to the precarious situation of freelance festival workers.
Cannes vs. Iran
Politics are never far from the forefront at Cannes, and this year is no different. As well as a film line-up that includes "The Apprentice", in which Sebastian Stan plays a young Donald Trump, current events are expected to hang over proceedings off-screen. Although demonstrations along the Croisette have been banned during the festival, the conflict in Gaza is "almost certain to spark some form of protest", said France24.
But perhaps less expected was the dramatic escape of Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled his home country for Europe last week after an appeals court upheld a verdict sentencing him to eight years in prison and flogging. The acclaimed filmmaker was found guilty of making films and public statements amounting to "collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security", according to his lawyer's statement on social media.
Other offences, including filming without correct permits and allowing female actors to be filmed without a hijab, related to the making of his film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig", which premieres at Cannes next week.
Rasoulof's departure from Iran has "spurred speculation" that the director will attend, said France24, "potentially setting the stage for an unprecedented showdown with the Islamic Republic", which has exerted pressure on festival organisers to cancel the screening.
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