Les Misérables! Cannes Film Festival Workers Planning Protests & Potential Strike Action Over Pay
01.05.2024 - 14:43
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: The Cannes Film Festival is well known as a place of protest and this year will be no different. However, this edition, the rebellion is coming from within.
We can reveal that up to 200 French film festival workers — a combination of Cannes workers and workers from other festivals across France — are planning protests during the event over pay.
The protests are being led by the group known as Sous Les Écrans La Dèche: Collectif Des Précaires Des Festivals De Cinéma (which translates to Under The Screens, The Waste: The Collective of Precarious Workers at Film Festivals). The name is a reference to the famous slogan of the May ‘68 protests: “Sous les pavés, la plage” (Under paving stones, the beach).
The progressive union launched in March 2020 and features workers from across different Cannes sections, including those who work on the Official Selection, the festival’s Marché du Film and parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week, as well as workers from the Bordeaux International Independent Film Festival, the Lumière Festival in Lyon, and the Entrevues International Film Festival in Belfort.
Sources from within the movement tell Deadline that they plan to make themselves heard at the opening ceremonies of Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week, and ACID Cannes, and will also stage demonstrations on the Croisette throughout the 12-day event, which begins on May 14 and will include starry premieres for movies including Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
The nature of the protests is currently under wraps but the group intends to meet on Thursday to finalize its strategy. Our sources have told us that multiple forms of action are on the table,