Cannes Film Festival: Terry Gilliam Dispute Goes to Court

Actress Cate Blanchett, jury president for the 71st Cannes Film Festival here, touched upon the conversation about women in Hollywood, saying it will take some time for change to ensue. Of course that’s going on in our industry. And director Roman Polanski, who fled the U.S.in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, showed his most recent film, Based on a True Story, at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, which he attended in person.

Husband and wife team Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz officially kicked the Cannes Film Festival into life last night, after several weeks of hype and media speculation about the potential shape of the world’s most glamorous bun-fight in the post-Weinstein era. They are here because of the quality of work.

The movie industry “has to be part of the solution”, Schiappa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email ahead of this year’s festival, which she said should be the “basis for liberating and listening to women’s voices”.

Blanchett said she would “absolutely” want to see more women in competition at the annual gala. I’m sure some press will be pissed, others unfazed, but most of all – no one knows how it’s going to play out.

She said the only incident she recalled was four or five years ago, when she sent two seamstresses to the room of two film stars early one morning. “All of our GCC looks in Cannes this year highlight the strides that designers and stylists are taking”, Firth says. “I said we really need gender and racial parity [in the jury]”, revealed Blanchett.

He agreed that the distribution mechanism for regional cinema isn’t great within India itself, but said things are changing due to streaming platforms like Amazon and Netflix, which have enabled their global reach.

Blanchett bristled at a question about how Cannes, which celebrates women in stilettos and glamorous dresses, fits into notions about female equality.

And of course, he also spoke about outlawing selfies from the red carpet. A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay desired an “emotional muscularity” from the selection, while Palme d’Or victor Léa Seydoux sought a movie “that manages to create a new language”.

Asked if he ever sexually harassed or acted inappropriately with her, she said: “Yes”.

With the obvious barriers in place, Cannes 2018 is the highly messed up scandal of the year, as reported by The New Indian Express.

“It’s awful to lend this such importance”. That may be the case, and the festival may very well do similar. The world would be terribly boring if it was.