The lesson from Cannes
Created to counter fascist interference during the 1930s, the festival could not tolerate the mockery of Lars von Trier.
Natalia Rangel_247 - For the first time in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, a participant has been declared persona non grata and asked to leave. Lars von Trier even attempted an apology after declaring at a press conference that he was a Nazi, took pleasure in being one, and understood Hitler, but the festival's management was adamant and officially announced on Thursday the 19th that he is expelled from the traditional film festival indefinitely. In the official statement, the festival's board also lamented that Trier had used Cannes as a platform for his statements. The filmmaker is already known as an enfant terrible in the film world – he is temperamental, provocative, and loves to shock his interlocutors.
This time, however, he misjudged the issue and singled out a crucial point in the history of the festival itself, which was created in the 1930s precisely to oppose the Venice Film Festival, which had been suffering successive interference from the fascist governments of Germany and Italy. The French Minister of Fine Arts at that time, Jean Zay, then proposed the founding of an international film festival in the country, and its first edition took place in June 1939. Louis Lumière, a pioneer of this art form, was the first president of the jury. After that, the war imposed a long silence on the event, which ended in 1946. The festival's commitment to freedom and humanism was reaffirmed in 1968, when screenings were interrupted in solidarity with the workers' and students' strike. Point of order raised by a group of notable figures including Louis Malle (who resigned from the jury), François Truffaut, Claude Berri, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco, Claude Lelouch, Roman Polanski, and Jean-Luc Godard. Trier chose the wrong subject for his mockery.