At Cannes, Films Never Arrive Alone. They Move Forward Surrounded By Rumors, Desires, Calculations, Snatched Conversations Between Screenings. This Year, However, The Festival’s Usual Murmur Has Taken On A Different Tone. Since The Publication On May 11 Of The Opinion Piece “Zapper Bolloré” In Libération, And The Reaction Attributed To Maxime Saada, Chairman Of The Management Board Of Canal+, The Croisette Has Found Itself Focused On Something Other Than Cinema—Or Rather On The Exact Point Where Cinema Stops Being Only An Art And Becomes Again An Industry, A Power Struggle, A Dependence. Arthur Harari Is Presenting The Unknown In The Official Competition. Yet The Entire Profession Wonders About The Cost Of Speaking Out Openly Now.
One Opinion Piece, Then A Sentence That Hardened Everything
At First, The Matter Still Belonged To Public Debate. The Opinion Piece “Zapper Bolloré,” Signed By About Six Hundred Film Professionals, Denounced The Growing Influence Of Vincent Bollore On The French Cultural Landscape. It Expressed A Specific Fear: That Power Would Consolidate To The Point Of Exerting Increasing Influence Across The Entire Film Chain, From Financing To Distribution, Even To Exhibition. Whether One Agrees With This Diagnosis Or Not, The Text Still Belonged To The Tradition Of Public Warnings. Indeed, The Cultural Sector Publishes Such Texts When It Believes A Political Or Symbolic Threshold Is Being Crossed.
Everything Changed When, On May 17 In Cannes, Maxime Saada, According To Several Concordant Sources, Stated He No Longer Wanted To Work With The Signatories Of That Opinion Piece. In A Few Words, The Discussion Left The Realm Of Disagreement Over Ideas And Entered The Much More Concrete Realm Of Professional Consequences. It Was No Longer Only A Question Of Whether The Criticism Directed At Vincent Bolloré Was Fair, Excessive, Or Poorly Worded. The Question Suddenly Became Simpler And More Serious. Can A Major Private Funder Of French Cinema Explain To Artists, Writers, And Producers The Impact Of Their Public Positions? Indeed, Those Positions Could Influence Their Future Relations With Him.
The Term “Blacklist” Immediately Imposed Itself On The Debate. It Is Important Here To Preserve The Precision Of The Facts. What Is Established Are Statements Reported By Multiple Media Outlets And Immediate, Numerous Reactions In The Film World. However, At This Stage, Nothing Indicates That Specific Contracts Have Been Withdrawn Because Of A Signature. Moreover, No Named Project Or Identifiable Funding Has Yet Been Withdrawn For That Reason. This Nuance Is Essential. It Does Not Diminish The Disturbance. It Locates It Precisely. For Now, The Crisis Concerns Less Documented Sanctions. Rather, It Concerns The Possibility That Such A Principle Of Exclusion Could Be Articulated. Indeed, That Could Be Done By An Actor So Central.
Perhaps That Is What So Quickly Inflamed Cannes. In A Sector So Dependent, An Alleged Threat Does Not Need To Have Already Been Applied To Produce Its Effects. It Is Enough That It Is Deemed Credible. On The Croisette, The Remark Spread With That Speed Typical Of News That Meet An Old Fear. First In Discreet Discussions, Then In More Open Comments, And Finally In The Public Sphere As A Whole. What Many Heard Was Not A Mere Boss’s Outburst. It Was The Signal That An Ideological Disagreement Could, Tomorrow, Turn Into A Work Problem.
Why Canal+ Is At The Heart Of The Earthquake
If The Shock Is So Strong, It Is Because Canal+ Is Not A Secondary Player In The Film Economy. The Group Occupies A Decisive Place In Private Financing For The Industry. In A Landscape Where Films Are Put Together Through Pre-Sales, Coproductions, Public Support, Broadcast Windows, And Patient Negotiations, A Partner Of This Size Carries Weight Not Only With Its Money. It Also Weighs By The Horizon It Opens Or Closes. When This Partner Suggests That Public Dissent Could Influence Its Future Relations With Professionals, The Entire Sector Suddenly Realizes Its Vulnerability.
The Unease, Ultimately, Comes From That. French Cinema Likes To Think Of Itself As A Space Of Freedom, Plurality, And Fertile Contradiction. And It Often Is. But That Freedom Does Not Float Above Reality. It Is Embedded In Funding Structures Where Absolute Independence Does Not Exist. A Film Is Not Born From An Idea Alone. It Also Is Born From A Financial Package, Trust, A Signature, A Broadcast Slot, A Timely Accepted Financial Commitment. It Is This Constant Link Between Aesthetic Freedom And Economic Dependence That The Cannes Sequence Abruptly Brings Back Into The Light.
The Reaction Of The President Of The National Center For Cinema, Gaëtan Bruel, Reflected This Embarrassment With Revealing Caution. According To Cannes Coverage Published By Libération, He Regretted Maxime Saada’s Reaction While Specifying That He Did Not Fully Share The Factual Presentation Of The Opinion Piece. The Wording Is More Instructive Than It Seems. It Shows That Part Of The Institutions Refuse To Normalize The Idea Of Pressure Being Exerted On Artists. However, They Avoid Unreservedly Adopting The Entire Political Reasoning Advanced By The Signatories. In Other Words, The Sector Is Not Uniformly Aligned With The Diagnosis. On The Other Hand, It Is Becoming Increasingly Sensitive To The Precedent Created By The Exclusion Of Professionals Because They Signed A Critical Text.
It Is This Complexity That Makes The Matter More Serious Than A Simple Clash Of Positions. It Would Be Wrong To See Only A Simple Opposition Between A Camp Of Virtue And A Camp Of Power. The Disagreement Also Crosses The Sensitivities Of The Sector, The Institutions, The Producers, And Sometimes Even The Signatories Themselves. But This Diversity Of Nuance Does Not Erase The Central Point. When A Major Funder Seems To Link Collaboration To Restraint In The Public Sphere, The Whole Ecosystem Tenses Up.
Arthur Harari, Or Cinema’s Return To The Turmoil
At The Same Time, Arthur Harari Arrives In Competition With The Unknown. The Official Cannes Festival Entry Lists A Franco-Italian Feature Running One Hundred Thirty-Nine Minutes. The Film Stars Léa Seydoux And Niels Schneider, And Explores A Story Of Identity Disturbance. The Film Was Awaited For Its Own Merits, For Harari’s Singular Perspective, For The Memory Left By Onoda, For The Aura That His Writing Work On Anatomy Of A Fall Has Further Reinforced. Everything, In The Logic Of A Festival, Should Have Made This Screening One Of The Day’s Major Artistic Events.
It Was. But It Wasn’t Alone. Cannes Has The Peculiarity Of Aggregating Narratives And Making Attention To Works Coexist With Them. Moreover, It Manages To Integrate The Din Of What Surrounds Them. This Year, The Coincidence Is Even More Striking. Harari, A Filmmaker Of Unease, Displacement, Of Identities That Slip, Presents His Film At A Moment When French Cinema Is Questioning The Solidity Of Its Own Lines. There Is An Involuntary Irony, Almost Too Perfect. On One Side, The Most Cinéphile Anticipation. On The Other, A Sector Suddenly Examining The Political, Economic, And Symbolic Conditions In Which Its Films Exist.
This Shift In Focus Is Revealing. Ordinarily, Cannes Loves The Superposition Of Narratives. A Walk Up The Steps Displaces A Controversy, A Press Conference Reboots A Film, A Prize Rumor Erases An Unease. This Time, The Two Planes Do Not Succeed One Another. They Contaminate Each Other. Arthur Harari’s Name Circulates Alongside Maxime Saada’s. The Unknown Is Commented On In A Climate Where People Also Talk About Freedom Of Creation, Concentration Of Power, Diffuse Fear, And Structural Dependence. Cinema Is Not Relegated To Second Place. It Is Replaced In The Material Reality That Sustains It.
What Cannes Reveals About French Cinema
It Would Be Tempting To Reduce This Sequence To Festival Agitation, Destined To Vanish Once The Awards Are Given Out. That Would Underestimate Its Reach. What Surfaces Here Is Older Than Maxime Saada’s Remark And Broader Than The Name Vincent Bolloré Alone. The Growing Concentration Of Production, Distribution, And Influence Has Long Been Working On The Cultural Field. The May 11 Opinion Piece Gave This Concern A Clear Formulation. Canal+’s Reaction Changed Its Register. The Issue Is No Longer Only Whether The Denounced Grip Is Real, Excessive, Or Misnamed. It Is About Understanding What Becomes Possible, Or Risky, To Say When Those You Criticize Occupy A Determining Place In The Sector’s Economy.
Ultimately, The Current Crisis Forces French Cinema To Look At Itself Unvarnished. It Likes The Idea Of Independence Protected By Solid Institutions, Habits Of Pluralism, And A Certain Cultural Exception. But That Representation Now Encounters Its Share Of Fragility. A Community Can Believe Itself Free As Long As It Has Not Had To Measure The Potential Price Of Its Freedom. Perhaps That Is What Cannes Lays Bare With Such Brilliance, Almost Despite Itself.
It Is Still Unknown What This Affair Will Concretely Produce. There May Be Clarifications, Denials, Gestures Of Appeasement, More Visible Solidarity Between Creators And Producers. There May Also Remain Something More Discreet And Lasting: An Internalized Restraint, A New Caution, The Temptation To No Longer Sign, To No Longer Speak, To No Longer Expose Oneself. However, The Most Effective Power Dynamics Often Do Not Need To Be Carried Out Completely To Be Understood. Thus, They Succeed In Being Felt.
That Is Why This Dispute Far Exceeds The Day’s Polemic. In The Midst Of The Festival Of Cannes, While A Major Anticipated Film Entered The Competition, French Cinema Found Itself Forced To Talk About What Still Makes Its Works Possible And What Could One Day Constrain Them. This Is Not A Peripheral Subject. It May Be, This Year, The Most Decisive Of All. Because Cinema Resists Poorly When Those Who Make It Suddenly Begin To Doubt Their Freedom Of Speech.
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