Cannes Jury President Greta Gerwig Speaks On Festival Controversy And Strikes

Official poster of the 77th Cannes Film Festival featuring a still image from the movie ‘Rhapsody in 'August’ by Akira Kurosawa (1991).

The Cannes Film Festival, a world renown beacon of cinematic excellence, elite and glamour, has once again taken center stage for it’s 77th edition. This year's festival has already been populated by pre-festival protests, strikes, and sparked conversations about broader industry issues.

On Sunday, Cannes festival workers turned a pre-festival meet-and-greet event into a spontaneous strike rally. Representatives from the Sous les écrans la dèche collective called for a walk out by freelance workers, in order to disrupt this year’s event.

WATCH: Cannes workers applaud strike action during pre-fest meeting.

Over 400 international filmmakers and industry executives have signed an online petition in support of Sous les écrans.

Strikes by film industry workers have highlighted significant issues within the industry, such as the exploitation of freelance labor and the lack of job security.

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux said there’s been an increased focus on political and social issues in the movie industry, which he says ‘tarnishes’ the actual films.

This years Cannes Competition jury president Greta Gerwig addressed further strikes of freelance festival workers by saying “I support labour movements. I hope that the festival workers can form an agreement that is good for them and supports them and supports the festival.”

"In the past, people only talked about the cinema. We as organizers only had one anxiety - the films: will people like them, will people hate them?" Fremaux said at a news conference on Monday.

Fremaux made the comment in response to a question about a report from a French newspaper that accused Cannes of hiring a crisis management team to deal with repercussions for a soon-to-be published list of 10 film industry figures who have been accused of sexual abuse.

With rumors of a massive #MeToo report about the French cinema industry amid the Cannes festival, jury president Greta Gerwig commented on the matter in a press conference on Tuesday: “I think people in the community of movies telling their stories and changing things for the better is only good. — I’ve seen substantial changes in the American film community; I think it’s important to expand the conversation.”

The festival gets underway this evening (May 14) with the premiere of ‘The Second Act,’ which screens out-of-competition.