Cannes festival activists turned a pre-festival meet-and-greet event into an impromptu strike rally on Sunday, applauding representatives of the Sous Les Écrans de la Ditch collective, a group that won this year’s festival. A walkout has been called for by freelance workers to disrupt the event.
On Sunday, May 12, festival workers were invited to meet management for a pre-festival cocktail and informal reception, which takes place each year before the festival begins.
But this time, Sous Les Ecran members handed out badges and stickers to workers in solidarity with the group’s demands, including a general strike by “all employees of the Cannes Film Festival and its sidebars.” Against which the group protested. The event describes the “precarious” position of freelance workers.
In a video sent to The Hollywood Reporter From a member of Sous les écrans, workers can be seen praising and encouraging the group’s spokesperson.
The group, whose name translates to Brook Behind the Screen, has long sounded the alarm about the precarious nature of film festival work, which usually involves short-term freelance contracts. Many intermediate festival workers are not covered by France’s unemployment insurance program, meaning they are not eligible for unemployment benefits between jobs or projects.
New French labor laws, set to take effect July 1, will make it more difficult for many freelance workers to qualify for benefits. Collective Freelance is calling for changes to festival workers’ contracts to allow them to be eligible, and for the changes to be backdated 18 months to allow workers to claim previous festival work.
Over 400 international filmmakers and industry executives incl Anatomy of a Fall Actors Swann Arlaud and Louis Garrel, who star in Quentin Dupuis’s Cannes debut. Second ActPalme d’Or winner Jean-Pierre Dardenne, hell boy Director Neil Marshall, and American director and producer John Landis (The Blues Brothers) Signed an online petition. In support at the bottom of the screen.
The Cannes festival has said it is open to talks with the group and hopes “collective action” can stop the strike. The issue is expected to be addressed at the fair on Monday. The 77th Cannes Film Festival begins on Tuesday, May 14.
Credit : www.hollywoodreporter.com
