Making a point: When the Cannes red carpet served as the ideal ground for protests

The Cannes Film Festival is synonymous with glamour, glitz, movies and all-round entertainment. Most times the festival’s red carpet is the most talked-about event, with people on social media and elsewhere discussing the stars’ various looks and styles.

This year, too, the Cannes Red Carpet has served inspiration and created buzz all over the world; but rather than the fashion, people have been talking about the protests that have taken place within a span of three days.

This isn’t the first time that the Cannes red carpet has served as protest spot; in 1968, the film festival had to be cancelled halfway due to protests led by François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

We take a look at how the Cannes red carpet has been an ideal spot for protests and how people have used the platform to push their message out.

Protesting violence towards women

On Sunday, a group of feminist protesters staged a protest on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet, unfurling a banner to highlight violence against women.

The group set off smoke flares and held their fists in the air as they carried a banner, showing the names of 129 women they say have been murdered in France since the last Cannes festival.

The protest came at the premiere for the Iranian film Holy Spider.

According to Agence France-Presse, the group are members of the feminist group Les Colleuses.

Security seemed unfazed by the event, allowing the protestors to be filmed and photographed.

The demonstration took place before the actors and others involved with Holy Spider had arrived.

In the film, directed by the Iranian-born Ali Abbasi, a female investigative journalist looks into the serial killing of sex workers in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad. The “Spider Killer” is behind the murders, believing he is clearing the streets of sinners.

It is based on the real life story of Saeed Hanaei, who killed at least 16 women. He became a hero to some Islamist militants, a scenario mirrored in Holy Spider.

A banner is unveiled with a list of names and that reads at the end "129 feminicides since the last Cannes festival" at the premiere of the film 'Holy Spider' at the 75th international film festival, Cannes. AP

‘Stop raping us’

The protest by members of Les Colleuses was the second one that the Cannes Film Festival saw this year.

Earlier, on Friday, a topless protester stormed the red carpet right before the premiere of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years Of Longing, protesting the against the alleged rapes by Russian soldiers of Ukrainians.

The woman tore off her clothes on the red carpet, showing her chest which was painted with Ukraine's national colours and the words "stop raping us" covering her torso.

Red paint, mimicking blood, was also splattered on her body.

The protester yelled, "Don’t rape us," before security guards circled her.

It was later reported that the woman is part of the French group SCUM, which describes themselves as “radical feminist activists”.

SCUM said on Twitter that she was there to “denounce the sexual violence inflicted on Ukrainian women in the context of the war”.

There have been reports of legions of rapes and other sexual violence committed against Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces as a weapon of war.

The gender gap protest

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein bombshell, talk about women’s safety and pay parity became hot topics in the world of Hollywood.

This found reverberations at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 when 82 women marched up the red carpet, stood on the stairs, locked arms, and turned to face away from the Palais des Festivals and toward the crowd.

Celebrities such as Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart and Salma Hayek, Patty Jenkins, Marion Cotillard, Ava DuVernay, Léa Seydoux, and Khadja Nin participated in the red carpet demonstration, attempting to highlight the gender discrimination within the industry.

The reason for 82 women was also significant: it was the number of films by female directors (including seven in mixed-gender teams) that have premiered in competition at Cannes in its 71-year history.

As part of their demonstration, Cate Blanchett then stepped forward and said: "Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of our industry says otherwise.

"We expect our institutions to actively provide parity and transparency in their executive bodies and provide safe environments in which to work. We expect our governments to make sure that the laws of equal pay for equal work are upheld. We demand that our workplaces are diverse and equitable so that they can best reflect the world in which we actually live. A world that allows all of us in front and behind the camera, all of us, to thrive shoulder to shoulder with our male colleagues."

File image of Kristen Stewart walks barefoot on the red carpet after she removed her shoes as she arrives for the screening of the film "BlacKkKlansman" at the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. AFP

To hell with heels!

One of the most enduring images from the Cannes red carpet comes courtesy of actor Kristen Stewart.

In 2018, Kristen Stewart, who was serving as a jury member, arrived at the premiere of Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman in silver Chanel Couture. As photographers continued to snap up her images, she proceeded to take the heels off and climb up the red carpet steps with her bare feet.

While many praised her for taking them off before heading up the stairs, her action wasn’t on a whim. She was protesting against the festival’s unofficial rule that women must wear heels on the carpet.

The ‘Heelgate’ issue cropped up in 2015 when 50 women were denied access to the red carpet at the premier of Cate Blanchett’s new film Carol when they went heelless.

Responding to the matter, Stewart had then said, “I feel like you can’t ask people that any more. If you’re not asking guys to wear heels and a dress, you cannot ask me either.”

With inputs from agencies

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