Cannes film festival chief Thierry Frémaux has attacked social media for making this year’s event “a Twitter festival”.
Speaking to French industry magazine Le Film Français, Frémaux criticised delegates’ tendency to respond to the world-first screenings of key arthouse titles by tweeting about them soon after leaving – or even during – a film.
“Everyone decided to say whatever happened to pass through their heads,” he said. “This created a permanent race against the clock between journalists and amateur neo-critics.”
“Writing a review is about formulating and putting down a thought, and can’t be summarised in 140 characters written as soon as the credits have stopped rolling.”
Frémaux has headed the festival since 2007 and has final say over which of the hundreds of films submitted play in the festival’s various strands. This year 19 films were included in the official competition, with French director Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan taking the biggest prize, the Palme d’Or.
“The degree of fantasy that Cannes arouses isn’t a license to write any old thing,” said Frémaux. “On the internet, an article is judged by the number of clicks it generates, civilisation is making progress!”
Ahead of this year’s event Frémaux and the festival’s president, Pierre Lescure, also took a swing at stars and their guests who take selfies on the red carpet.
“We are waging a campaign to slow down the contemporary practice of selfies on the red carpet and the steps,” said Frémaux. “Beyond what we think, it’s a practice that’s often extremely ridiculous and grotesque.”
“It’s always the ugliest picture of you anyway,” added Lescure.
Their antagonism towards social media was echoed by actor Catherine Deneuve, who complained at the festival that the nature of acting stardom was undermined by the intrusiveness of Twitter and its like. Deneuve attended Cannes as she played a lead role in Standing Tall, the festival’s opening night film.
Cannes’ organisers were dogged by accusations of stuffiness and even sexism this year after it emerged that a group of women in their 50s had been refused entry to a gala screening because they were not wearing high heels. In a separate incident producer Valeria Richter, who has her big toe and part of her foot missing, said she had been stopped four times by officials for wearing flat shoes.
“We put on the dress and make an effort to be formal and festive, but to demand heels is not right,” Richter told the Telegraph.
Frémaux responded – on Twitter – that the “rumour saying the festival insists on high heels for women on the red carpet is unfounded”.
