“The dirty rumor accusing ten actors of sexual violence says a lot about the poison distilled during the Cannes Film Festival and what it produces”

Lhe race for the Palme d’Or is on and the end of the world has not happened, an earthquake has not destroyed the Cannes palace, a tsunami has not swallowed up the festival-goers. We say this because the day before Cannes, an obscure

What matters is not this bogus list, attributed initially and in such a bogus way to Mediapart, who had to deny, but what she said about the distilled poison and what it produced. Already a crazy crop of media, including abroad, have mentioned the rumor with more or less ambiguity. The prize goes to Cyril Hanouna who, on May 6, in “Touche pas à mon poste”, on the C 8 channel, announced that “virtually all French cinema is affected”before giving the floor to columnist Gilles Verdez: “If this list of ten names comes out (…), it’s the end of French cinema, the end of the Cannes Festival. » Hanouna concludes: “Afterwards, we don’t know what it’s all about. » Obviously.

A cinema sector that is quick to be outraged did not react to this mind-blowing scene. It is true that Cyril Hanouna is the protégé of Vincent Bolloré, boss of Canal+, a channel which largely finances cinema in France.

What happened, according to THE Parisian from May 11 and La Tribune Sunday from May 12, these are meetings in Cannes or elsewhere, led by communications agencies specializing in crisis management. Does feverishness have to take over people’s minds for an epsilonesque rumor, without the beginning of proof, to be able to stir brains to this extent?

Impressive group shot

The rumor does not resonate with a little recurring music on far-right sites aimed at accusing French cinema of being fed with public money and of creating leftist films. It does not benefit the #metoo movement in any way, which is likened to head-cutters. It blurs the issue of sexual violence in cinema, an issue that several newspapers (SheTélérama, Liberation) have just become heavier via investigations and testimonies implicating personalities.

The world was not to be outdone, publishing on May 15 four exceptional pages in which one hundred personalities, especially women, while asking for a “global law” against sexual violence, pose in groups in front of Sonia Sieff’s lens. We can see in these images a tribute to the American photographer Richard Avedon and his brilliant portrait of Chicago Seven (1969), activists against the Vietnam War who were the subject of a resounding trial. In the same way that Avedon visually translates the strength of the collective in a political fight, #metoo is a collective response to isolated attacks.

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