As the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival got under way this week, the dark political clouds overhead could not be ignored. This is Cannes after all. The festival began in the 1930s as a protest against the Venice Film Festival, which in 1939 invited Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as its guest of honour and gave a special “Mussolini cup” to Hitler’s favourite documentarian, Leni Riefenstahl.
Its inaugural edition was scheduled for September 1 1939, but was cancelled because German tanks were rolling into Poland. Since 1946 Cannes has been the annual movie industry event at which celebrities are expected to comment on global events. This has become more a case of radical chic than the demonstration of political commitment that drove French New Wave mavericks Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut when they stormed the festival’s main hall in May 1968 in solidarity with the students of Paris.
Today it seems Cannes may have dropped its purist commitment to cinema as art for a more practical mix of programming and events. This year, for example, Tom Cruise will be seen smiling on the Croisette at the premier of his final Mission Impossible instalment, on which, apparently, the future of the movie business rests. But the festival still has space for less mainstream, experimental art house films to compete for its coveted Palme d’Or.
After last year’s edition, which almost bent over backwards in its attempt to not allow the charged issue of the October 7 2023 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent retaliation on Gaza to overshadow its glitz and glam, this year’s festival has begun with plenty of politics and, thanks to a strict festival dress code, no Met Gala-style red-carpet cleavage and nudity on display.
In light of the threats posed to western liberal democracy, financial markets and the foreign film industry by the tumultuous tariffs, deportations and neo-fascist regulations of the second Donald Trump presidency, the outraged glitzy stars of Movieland are mad as hell and not willing to be quiet any more — especially when they have the luxury of free speech in France.
Though stars like Cruise and jury president Juliette Binoche had earlier this week tried to deflect questions about Trump’s proposed 100% tariffs on non-American films and Gaza towards discussions about their films at press conferences, veteran actor and longtime public Trump-detesting speaker Robert De Niro was ready to return to the battle for democracy when he accepted a lifetime Palme d’Or on Tuesday night.
Describing Trump as a “philistine president”, who poses a fundamental threat to “the democracy we once took for granted”, the 81-year-old described the proposed 100% tariff as an attack on art. “Art is the crucible that brings people together, like tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity. That’s why art is a threat,” said De Niro to loud cheers from the audience as Leonardo Di Caprio stood behind him at the podium.
De Niro went on to say, “This isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global one. Like a film, we can’t just all sit back and watch. We have to act, and we have to act now.” He urged people to take action “without violence but with great passion and determination”. De Niro concluded his speech by calling “for everyone who cares about liberty to organise, to protest, and when there are elections, vote. Vote. Tonight, and for the next 11 days, we show our strength and commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”
De Niro’s call to action helped to spur other opening night speakers to give their best Che Guevara impressions, with French actor Laurent Lafitte saying, “If there is a place in the world where civic cinema exists, it is in the Festival de Cannes... Here in Cannes, we protect real-life cinema.”
Binoche was similarly moved, and addressed the elephant in the room in her opening remarks. “The wind of pain is so violent today that it sweeps away the weakest. The hostages of October 7, and all the hostages, the prisoners, the drowned who endure terror and die in a terrible feeling of abandonment and indifference. Against the immensity of these storms, we must give birth to gentleness, transform our fragmented visions into trust, rediscover, heal, cure our ignorance, and let go of our fears, our selfishness. Change, change course, and through their healing, restore humility.”
All these impassioned remarks are better suited to a political rally, how they will be received on the red carpets and halls of a film festival remains to be seen. Despite the damage Trump’s return to power has wreaked, he may provide just the creative kick in the posterior Cannes and the art-film industry need.
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