Cannes #MeToo: Fest Kicks-Off Amid Starry Petition Calling For New Sexual Crimes Law & Allegations Against Veteran ‘The Pianist’ Producer But No Bombshell Exposé
14.05.2024 - 15:43
/ deadline.com
The Cannes Film Festival opened Tuesday with expectations that the big theme of this 81st edition will be #MeToo, even if rumors of an imminent bombshell exposé involving 10 prominent cinema figures were quashed overnight.
France’s #MeToo wave, sparked by actress and filmmaker Judith Godrèche’s decision to speak up about sexual abuse she says she suffered as a teenager and her subsequent campaign to end what she calls a culture of silence in the French film world, will be omnipresent.
Godrèche’s actions have encouraged thousands of sexual abuse victims across all walks of life to speak up about their experiences.
The actress and filmmaker will be in Cannes for the world premiere on Wednesday evening of her resulting short film Moi Aussi, gathering 1,000 people who got in touch with her via social media channels to tell their stories.
However, frenzied media speculation that a #MeToo exposé naming 10 prominent film professionals was due to drop during Cannes dissipated overnight following a tough-talking rebuttal by investigative website Mediapart, which many local media outlets has cited as the expected source of the report.
Calling “the media show” around the rumors “pathetic”, the site explained that it would never publish a list.
“When we reveal facts about gender-based and sexual violence, as with all the topics of general public interest that we cover, we publish ‘investigations’ based on cross-checked information,” it wrote in a piece addressing the rumors.
“These often take several months, at least several weeks. Because the time for cross-checking information is incompressible, as is the process of giving the right to reply (which consists of questioning the people or institutions involved).
The Mediapart