This year’s Cannes Film Festival is off to a rocky start. A French labor group representing freelance workers at film festivals across France is calling for a strike ahead of next week’s opening night festivities.
The group is calling on Cannes to meet them halfway with a collective agreement, otherwise they’re not showing up for their jobs. Something’s gotta give. The fest can’t happen without these workers.
However, in regard to Cannes, this isn’t even what everyone’s been talking about in France. If you can believe it, something much bigger is brewing over the fest, like a dark cloud set to ignite a firestorm.
Practically every French media outlet is reporting on a mysterious list of 10 actors/directors/producers who are set to be accused of #MeToo allegations DURING the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
The bombshell report, set to be published by Mediapart, during the festival, has brought much fear to the French film industry, and is being described as “an earthquake.” Le Figaro is reporting that, Cannes president, Iris Knobloch has already hired an agency to prepare for “crisis communication”.
Earlier this morning, there was a tweet naming the names to be published. I won’t go into them in detail. You’ll find out who they are when the time comes, but, if the list that popped up online turns out to be accurate, then one of the names is a filmmaker who has a film in competition this year and the other is a former Oscar winner for Best Actor.