Iranian director’s escape stokes drama as Cannes gears up for explosive film fest

Scandal and controversy are integral to the Cannes Film Festival, but this year’s gathering looks set to be the most turbulent in years – and not only because of the showers and thunderstorms forecast to lash the Côte d’Azur.

Once the famous red carpet is rolled out from the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, the world’s premier film shindig will dish out its customary 10-day movie extravaganza – with a line-up some critics have billed as the most mouthwatering in years.

But darker plotlines abound, reflecting a backdrop of turmoil both in France and abroad.

In a last-minute twist on the eve of the festival, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof – who is competing for the Palme d’Or – announced he had fled his home country just days after being sentenced to eight years in prison on security offences.

“I am grateful to my friends, acquaintances, and people who kindly, selflessly, and sometimes by risking their lives, helped me get out of the border and reach a safe place on the difficult and long path of this journey,” Rasoulof, whose whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Instagram.

The filmmaker, whose passport was confiscated in September 2017, also criticised the scope and intensity of repression by Iranian authorities and called for the world cinema community to stand by filmmakers facing censorship and defend freedom of speech.

News of his escape instantly spurred speculation that the acclaimed director might attend the Cannes premiere next Friday of his competition entry “The Seed of The Sacred Fig”, potentially setting the stage for an unprecedented showdown with the Islamic Republic, which had pressured him to withdraw his film. 

Rasoulof’s flight from Iran adds further geopolitical drama to this year’s festival, with the war raging in Gaza almost certain to spark some form of protest, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine high on the agenda for a third year running, both on and off the screen.

French eyes, however, will be on the belated #MeToo reckoning that has rattled the country’s film industry in recent months. Add in concerns over a strike call by festival workers over pay and conditions, which would involve projectionists and ticketing agents, and this year’s edition looks set for the bumpiest of rides.

French cinema frets over rumoured blacklist

Cannes officially opens on Tuesday with a screening of “The Second Act”, a French comedy by Quentin Dupieux, starring local favourites Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon.

Meryl Streep will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or during the opening ceremony, becoming the first of several female stars to be honoured on a year that sees the Palme d’Or jury headed by American director Greta Gerwig, fresh from her box office triumph with “Barbie”.

However, all eyes will be on French actor and director Judith Godrèche, whose accounts of the sexual abuse she says she endured as a teenage actor have deeply shaken the French film industry, challenging its resistance to the #MeToo movement.

Read more‘Wind of revolt’ sweeps French cinema in belated #MeToo reckoning

Godrèche has spoken passionately about the need for change at the Césars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, and before a French Senate commission, urging an end to sexual abuse in what she described as an “incestuous” French film industry. On Monday, she joined a protest outside the headquarters of the National Centre for Cinema (CNC) in Paris, whose embattled president faces a sex assault trial later this month.

In the run-up to Cannes, Godrèche shot a 17-minute film during a Paris gathering of hundreds of women who wrote to her with their own stories of sexual abuse. Titled “Moi Aussi” (Me Too, in French), it will open the festival’s “Un Certain Regard” section on Wednesday.

The screening will mark an early climax for a festival that has long been accused of doing too little to foster gender parity in film and where the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein once held court.

In the run-up to the festival, French news outlets reported that Cannes had set up a crisis management team to prepare for new explosive allegations of abuse in the industry, amid rumours of a secret list of alleged abusers that included household names in French film.

When quizzed about the rumours in an interview with Paris Match, festival president Iris Knoblach said Cannes would examine allegations on a “case-by-case” basis, appearing to suggest some people may be withdrawn from the red-carpet premieres to avoid damaging the movies.

On Monday, the investigate website Mediapart, which has played a leading part in disclosing allegations of sex abuse in the industry, denied rumours it planned to out alleged sex offenders during the festival’s curtain-raiser. It denounced a “pathetic media circus” that only served to deflect attention from the message carried by the likes of Godrèche. 

Hollywood silverbacks and a young Trump

Against this tense backdrop of geopolitical turmoil and #MeToo angst, organisers have gone all out with an impressive line-up of films stacked with celebrated auteurs and Hollywood stardust.

Perhaps the most feverishly awaited entry is Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed opus “Megalopolis”, a Roman epic set in modern-day New York, starring Adam Driver as a visionary architect seeking to rebuild the crumbling city. The decades-in-the-making project comes 45 years after Coppola picked up his second Palme d’Or with an unfinished cut of “Apocalypse Now”.  

Another “New Hollywood” veteran, Paul Schrader returns to Cannes half a century after he wrote the script for Martin Scorsese’s Palme-winning “Taxi Driver”. His latest work, “Oh, Canada”, stars Richard Gere as a dying filmmaker who recounts his life story for a documentary.

After the Cannes line-up was announced, Schrader shared on Facebook an old photo of himself, Coppola and George Lucas – who will collect another honorary Palme d’Or at the festival’s closing ceremony – with the caption “Together again”.

Other hot tickets in the Palme d’Or race include “Kinds of Kindness”, reuniting Emma Stone with director Yorgos Lanthimos, fresh from their Oscar triumph with “Poor Things”. It co-stars up-and-coming actor Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andie McDowell, who also features in Demi Moore's unlikely comeback, slasher-horror “The Substance”.

Film fans are also excited for new works from body-horror maestro David Cronenberg (“The Shrouds”), Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (“Parthenope”) and Britain’s Andrea Arnold (“Bird”), who will collect the Golden Coach award at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar event.

Even the upcoming US presidential election won’t be far off with “The Apprentice”, a biopic of Donald Trump's formative years by Iranian-born director Ali Abbasi. It stars Sebastian Stan, known for playing the Winter Soldier in Marvel films.

Playing out of competition, US actor and director Kevin Costner returns to his favourite genre, the Western, with the epic “Horizon, an American Saga”. One of China’s biggest-ever productions, “She’s Got No Name”, features megastar Zhang Ziyi tackling the highly sensitive topic of women’s rights. And ready to ignite this year’s powder-keg festival is the firebomb of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”, George Miller’s latest apocalyptic dystopia. 

(With AP, AFP)