May 1968: wave of unrest reaches Cannes
AFP’s special correspondent Roger Lanteri sent the following report after the festival was suspended.
CANNES, May 18, 1968 (AFP) – It was total chaos today at the Cannes Film Festival: its cinema occupied, skirmishes on the stage, clashes between members of the audience, the jury resigning, films withdrawn and finally the competition scrapped and replaced with screenings “for information”.
The French student demonstrators and workers had for the past few days been stirring up trouble among filmmakers and critics at the festival, who they said gave the world a false image of France through “its socialite receptions and lack of concern”.
On this day the filmmakers who had come from Paris: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Lelouch, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco, created shockwaves which helped the protest movement pick up.
At a meeting of the Cinémathèque française, which had been established several months earlier in support of its founder Henri Langlois who had been fired by Culture Minister André Malraux, they decided to wind up the festival and occupy the palace. They did so. A rolling meeting was set up.
Louis Malle decided to resign from the jury and was quickly followed by Italy’s Monica Vitti, Britain’s Terence Young and Poland’s Roman Polanski. France’s Serge Roullet, who was absent, joined them afterwards. The jury decided to come in line.
Several filmmakers announced that they were withdrawing their films: Carlos Saura (Spain), Salvatore Samperi (Italy), Milos Forman (Czechoslovakia), Richard Lester (Britain) and all the French directors: Alain Resnais, Dominique Delouche and Claude Lelouch for two films. But from 15h00, as the paying public arrived to see « Je t'aime, je t'aime » by Alain Resnais, the situation became rowdy in a divided cinema where people were shouting.
The festival’s chiefs, Marcel Flouret, Robert Favre Le Bret and Robert Cravenne, went on stage to announce thar the competition had been cancelled due to the resignation of the jury, but that screening continued for purposes of “information”.
The protestors came out in opposition to the proposal and there were light clashes on the stage between supporters and opponents of the festival’s closure. The order went out to start the screening of Spanish film of Carlos Saura “Peppermint Frappé”, but the protestors hung on to the curtains, preventing them from opening and the attempt was quickly abandoned.
As chaos reached its height in the cinema the festival organisers and the protest leaders reached an agreement: the competition was called off but the films would be shown unless the filmmakers objected. The 1968 film festival was a festival without prizes, the first which was not completed.