Ahead of the showcase, rumors swirled of a bombshell exposé being published that would outline new accusations of abuse against a string of prominent industry figures who would be in attendance. At the pre-festival press conference, Cannes’s artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, refused to comment on the matter, stressing that the festival’s focus should be the films itself. However, that didn’t stop journalists from quizzing the likes of jury president Greta Gerwig and Léa Seydoux, the star of the festival’s opening film, The Second Act, on the topic at Cannes’s earliest press conferences—though it quickly emerged that no such report would be coming after all.
Still, women directors did what they could to ensure the subject wasn’t entirely forgotten: over the next few days, Judith Godrèche’s powerful short Moi Aussi debuted on the Croisette (and the filmmaker posed on the red carpet with her hands over her mouth to symbolize the silencing of women), alongside Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Noémie Merlant’s The Balconettes, and Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, all of which approach the issue from a number of different, equally fascinating angles.
There were nods to the war in Gaza
In his pre-festival press conference, Thierry Frémaux also spoke of his hopes for “a festival without polemics,” and organizers did their best to deliver exactly that: protests were banned, and while, initially, the festival was reportedly amenable to a plan for Arab filmmakers to wear pins in support of Palestinians, it later changed course. That’s not to say that no one made their voices heard: some attendees did indeed wear ceasefire pins; before the festival kicked off, Lupin star and jury member Omar Sy publicly called for a ceasefire; and on May 21, at the festival’s Algerian pavilion, a moment of silence was observed in memory of those killed in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Bella Hadid showed solidarity and honored her own Palestinian heritage with a Michael and Hushi keffiyeh dress, and Cate Blanchett’s floor-length, Haider Ackermann-designed Jean Paul Gaultier gown for the premiere of The Apprentice generated much discourse, with some viewers speculating that it was intended to resemble the Palestinian flag when held up against the red carpet. (The actor has long been pushing for a ceasefire, but did not comment further on her look. It’s worth adding that while the back of her dress looked paler on camera, in reality, it was a blush pink.) Elsewhere, Laura Blajman-Kadar, a survivor of the October 7 Hamas attacks, wore a bright yellow dress featuring the faces of hostages held in Gaza and a sash that read: “Bring them home.”