Albert Dupontel, Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano or the brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne are alarmed in a text published on the opening day of the Cannes Film Festival.
Some 500 mainly French-speaking filmmakers, including Albert DupontelOlivier Nakache and Éric Toledano or the brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardennedenounce industry interference in their artistic work, “in the name of profitability“, in statement released on Tuesday.
Gathered by the Society of Film Directors (SRF), guardian of auteur cinema, these artists are alarmed in this text published on the day of the opening of the Cannes Film Festival that “the diversity and vitality of cinema is increasingly weakened by certain practices that contravene the fundamental principles of copyright and freedom of creation” They cite in particularmodified scripts, imposed artistic collaborators and castings, films modified during editing by broadcasters, prescribed music choices“.
These practices, “in the name of profitability», «inevitably represent a form of censorship that alters any creative process“, they believe. “They call into question the freedom of experimentation and end up making the author invisible, by getting dangerously close to the notion of “copyright” prevailing in the US market“. In the American legal tradition, unlike in Europe, the director does not have the last word and can lose control of the destiny of his work.
Read alsoCannes, haunt of “chief rapists”? Thierry Frémaux responds to Adele Haenel
Consequently, the signatories claim that the final version of the screenplay, the title of the film, the final version of the editing or even the credits cannot be modified without the agreement of the artist. Among the signatories are also Costa Gavras, Kev Adams, Jacques Audiard, Claire Dennis, Nicole Garcia or Alice Winocourt. The issue of respecting the rights of the various actors in the film creation chain is a burning issue, as evidenced by the scriptwriters’ strike which is currently paralyzing Hollywood.