No Cannes Film Festival without controversy or quarrel, or even – new fact – denunciation by one or more crows. The edition of the 76th Festival which opens on May 16 is no exception to the rule with the selection in competition of Catherine Corsini’s new film, The Return. The film, singled out for its shooting conditions, was the subject of a report last November to the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office for sexualized scenes featuring adolescents. No complaints have yet been filed.
Announced for the first time in selection at the Cannes Film Festival, on April 13, the film had been withdrawn by decision of the board of directors. The latter had been informed that the National Cinema Center (CNC) was withdrawing a subsidy of 680,000 euros from the production. In question: a sex scene involving a minor actress under the age of 16, who had not been declared to the commission responsible for studying filming requests.
But on April 24, the team of general delegate Thierry Frémaux finally decided, in agreement with the president of the Festival, Iris Knobloch, to reinstate him, after ten days of investigation and in the absence of evidence on reprehensible facts. This did not prevent producer Marc Missonnier from signing angry tweets in which he denounces the blindness of the largest film festival in the world and calls for its boycott via the hashtag
[THREAD] The @Festival_Cannes has therefore decided to ignore all the warnings and shortcomings characterized by taking Catherine Corsini’s film
The film tells the story of Kheididja, a 40-year-old woman, returning to Corsica for a summer to take care of the children of a wealthy couple (Virginie Ledoyen and Denis Podalydès). There, she finds herself with two teenage girls who are going to do the 400 blows and know their first romantic experiences. In the casting, we find Aïssatou Diallo Sagna, noticed in Corsini’s previous film, La Fracture.
The producer of The Return, Elisabeth Perez, hastened to defend the film in the American magazine Variety, citing “unwelcome accusations”, while pleading “an administrative error”. Le Parisien, she also clarified that the actors involved, aged 15 and 17 “played in a totally consented and totally simulated way”.
On the side of the Society of Film Directors (SRF), its co-president, screenwriter and director Thomas Bidegain, pleads, with Point, appeasement after some heated debates within the association whose Catherine Corsini has just slammed the door. . He is pleased that “in this specific case, the rights of the directors are respected and that the decision to select Le Retour or not belongs to its general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, and to no one else. In other words, the SRF is not a court to judge the selection of this or that film at the Cannes Film Festival.