Since the start of the #MeToo movement, the question of programming films in light of the actions of those involved in their making has become increasingly salient. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, both Collectif 50/50 and the French Association of Arthouse Cinemas tackled this topic and brought about riveting discussions.
Over the course of seven years, there has been a significant increase in the number of questions raised about the programming of films whose directors, actors or technicians have been the subject of complaints, prosecutions or even convictions for gender-based violence. This heightened awareness of whether to program a film in light of its author or team’s actions is clearly linked to the activism of the American #MeToo movement, launched in 2017, and to the increasingly consistent media coverage we are seeing on these cases in France. These films, from Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (2019) to Jacques Doillon’s CE2 (scheduled for release last March in France, but permanently delayed) to Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s Forever Young (2022), end up being programmed by cinema operators or programmers who are then directly confronted by the public’s reaction while sometimes not (yet) knowing there’s a gender-based violence case linked to the film they’re showing.
These are often complicated, relatively isolated situations, involving the programmer’s relationship with the film’s distributor, more or less tense discussions with the cinema staff, and a dialogue with an audience that may not share the same opinions when it comes to separating the man from the artist. Choosing to program a film is akin to a political choice, and one must therefore be able to answer for their decision. So, should programmers operate on a case-by-case basis, should they ban the films of a director who’s being prosecuted, should they program the “#MeToo films” while always ensuring communication and mediation around them, should they establish a modus operandi that would be applied to these situations?
The power of mediation
More and more voices are being raised on these subjects, and it seemed urgent to get together, discuss and reflect what actions might be taken to move forward. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the feminist Collectif 50/50 and the AFCAE (the French Association of Arthouse Cinemas) invited three French cinema operators to discuss this very topic. Stéphanie Jaunay, the cinema programmer at the Théâtre National de Bretagne (TNB) in Rennes, Brittany, talked about choosing to show Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy back in 2019, which marked the beginning of a more in-depth reflection on programming and has resulted in greater work on heritage cinema – with more female directors being showcased – the creation of a series around the diversity of feminist theories, as well as greater attention being paid to nationally-released films made by women.
Laurent Callonnec, the director and programmer of L’Écran in Saint-Denis, neighboring Paris, shared his experience with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Forever Young, which was released in November 2022. When the French daily newspaper Libération published a story about the accusations against one of the film’s actors, it was already being shown at L’Écran. After being accused of censoring the film as he had deprogrammed it, Callonec explained that he needed that period of time to reflect on an appropriate solution. He discussed with various people from the industry and then decided to keep two screenings of the film, followed by a discussion between the audience and the cinema staff.
Towards a collective way to deal with #MeToo films
As for Fabien Gaffez, the Artistic Director of the Forum des Images in Paris, he discussed the choice of programming Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), as part of a series devoted to the city of Los Angeles in 2023. A day before the screening, weekly newspaper Le Point published an article in which Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner tried to exonerate him, which led some employees of the Forum des Images to ask for the film to be deprogrammed. After several internal discussions, it was decided to maintain it with a pre-screening display explaining this choice. The response from the public was rather negative, as some viewers did not necessarily want to be confronted with such information, but it allowed for a more in-depth reflection on a collective manner to deal with that type of situation.
This talk highlighted the fact that programmers engage in personal questioning that finds applications in their professional practice. Some very concrete suggestions for reacting – even in emergency situations – to delicate situations were offered. It now appears obvious that dialogue and mediation, both with the cinema team and the audience, really gets everyone moving. This raises the question of training, not only for programmers but also for the whole team, because engaging with the audience on gender-based violence isn’t something one can improvise. It was also made clear that the solutions discussed brought nuance rather than binarity to the subject: making room for other films, lesser-known filmmakers and heritage female-directed films is, for example, a constructive response to censorship.
This round-table discussion marked the start of a nationwide discussion on the programming of #MeToo films, with a second talk organized at La Rochelle Cinéma Festival in June and more dates to be announced.
Laura Pertuy
Edited by Ela Bittencourt
© FIPRESCI 2024
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in Cannes 2024