After Maxime Saada, the boss of Canal+, decided on Sunday to boycott the 600 cinema professionals who signed a platform against Vincent Bolloré, the sector, paralyzed, spared no expense.
Since the festival launched last Tuesday and a column signed by more than 600 cinema professionals denouncing the control of the far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré on the ecosystem of the seventh art was published in Liberation, a new tradition has entered the cinemas of Cannes: stop all applause when the Canal+ logo appears on the big screen. This has mutated in recent hours into boos, particularly since the Saturday evening screening of Full Phil by Quentin Dupieux in midnight screening. More radical.
Enough to upset Maxime Saada, the boss of Canal+, who responded on Sunday by announcing that he will purely and simply boycott all the signatories of the platform. Exit therefore Juliette Binoche, Jean-Pascal Zadi, Raymond Depardon, Zita Hanrot, Samuel Kircher and Swann Arlaud who signed the ticket.
Let us recall, in passing, that Vincent Bolloré is the reference shareholder of Canal+, the leading financier of French cinema, by far. Between 2025 and 2027, the group will allocate some 160 million euros per year to French cinema, financing both major productions and arthouse films. In addition, the group led by Saada acquired 34% of the capital of UGC last year, the third largest network of cinemas in France, and intends to take over 100% of the shares by 2028.
“(Canal has) a desire for a different and multiple cinema”
Vincent Bolloré “will be in a position to control the entire film production chain, from their financing to their distribution on small and large screens”, criticizes the forum. The sector, which is walking on eggshells, is today expressing its concern, while trying to calm things down.
If Jeanne Herry, the réalisatrice of Warrantyin competition at Cannes, understands that this platform was born “from fear, from anxiety, adding that “when we hear ‘black list’, ‘threats’, it only fuels this anxiety”, she was keen to recall how Canal+ had supported her throughout her career: “The group is very important in my professional life, they are people who followed me in all the projects, who accompanied all the turns, all the subjects that I wanted to address and who allowed me to make the films that I wanted to make.”
But you filmed it I will always see your faces does not hide its face: “We can be afraid of what comes next. Our model is contested within our borders, even in France, the system is very virtuous, this is what explains that we have the third largest cinema in the world, because we have a wonderful system, because the CNC, the chronology of media, etc. Canal+ is at the heart of French cinema and French cinema is at the heart of Canal+’s economic and sentimental model, it’s a marriage of convenience.”
“We are facing a tremendous waste,” regretted Alain Attal, one of the producers of Warranty. This hot reaction creates a kind of blacklist and at the same time, we’re pissed off because we have a fantastic house (Canal+) which supports diversity.”
Same story with Boris Lojkine, the director of The Story of Souleymanea film marked on the left which benefited from funding from Canal+, cited by Maxime Saada to prove that his group finances all types of films: “I have never had to complain about Canal+, I appreciate their teams and their outlook. My last two films, including The Story of Souleymaneit was Canal which allowed the financing by pre-purchasing it, which France Télévisions nor Arte had not done. But this petition expresses a concern, we do not want Canal to be the next Grasset. We live in a moment where everyone has the feeling that the very elaborate, precious and fragile ecosystem which allows the richness and diversity of French cinema could be threatened.”
The boss of Chi-Fou-Mi Productions Hugo Sélignac was keen to recall the support of the pay channel “on various, complex projects”. “We see how much they want a different and multiple cinema,” he said, adding that he understood that the Canal teams could have been “annoyed” by the platform. But he rejected any sidelining of his signatories and assured that he would “work with them again”.
A little earlier in the week, Pierre Salvadori, director of the opening film The Electric Venushad also tried to keep things simple: “I completely understand the emotion and concern (which guided the writing of this column). Canal+ has an obligation to invest in cinema. There are diversity clauses, volume clauses and a guarantee of independence. The people who guarantee us this freedom are the director of cinema acquisitions of the Canal+ Group Laurent Hassid and Maxime Saada. But he warns: “The day I am asked to make another film, to make a biography, I will look elsewhere or I will not make any more films.”
Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate of the Cannes festival, brushed aside the question, arguing that this subject “is not the festival”.
“Call for vigilance”
Others, and they are rare, have nevertheless risen to the niche. This is the case, for example, of one of the co-signatories of the said forum Emmanuel Marre, director of Our Salvationselected in competition and pre-purchased by Canal+. If he first praised the “tremendous” work of the group’s teams on his film in a press release, he then explained his approach: “The aim of my signature is not to accuse the Canal+ cinema of today but to call for vigilance regarding the Canal+ of tomorrow.”
And to specify: “It seems essential and vital to me to be able to express disagreements with the structures which finance us. It is a cardinal principle in my eyes. This call goes beyond the Bolloré case. I see a more general meaning in it. What faces us is the question of economic concentration and its impact on the very possibility of the plurality and diversity of cinematic creation. This applies to all artistic fields and even all areas of life in the future, if an essential financier upstream of the chain also has interests in theatrical exploitation, how can we guarantee that the financing choices. are not going to be solely dictated by commercial potential? How can we guarantee that tomorrow UGC will release films in theaters without ulterior motives?”
Lucid, he accepts Saada’s sentence: “If I have to suffer the consequence of not being eligible for support from Canal+, I fully accept it.” But urges his comrades “to find a collective and concerted response”. “We must not boo the Canal+ of today but ensure that its independence is still possible in five years,” he declared.
Actress Adèle Exarchopoulos also didn’t mince her words: “You can’t be afraid of losing your job just because you express collective concern.”
A discomfort shared by filmmaker Arthur Harari, in competition this year at Cannes with The Unknownalso co-writer ofAnatomy of a fallpointing the finger at Vincent Bolloré’s empire: “We didn’t wait for Grasset to understand the problem of having the first private contributor to cinema in the hands of a cryptofascist, the most powerful capitalist in France.”
