Standing at the top of the red-carpeted stairs this week with actor Meryl Streep, Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch looked every inch the haute couture-clad doyenne of the global movie industry.
But away from the gowns and the glamour, the mood in Cannes has been undercut this year by mounting sexual misconduct scandals rocking the higher echelons of a French film world that has been slow to respond to the #MeToo movement.
With a depleted roster of films as the industry only slowly recovers from Hollywood strikes, Knobloch’s second year in charge has been riven with issues to address as she seeks to keep the world’s biggest film festival relevant in the face of the growing influence of rivals such as Venice and Toronto.
But people who know her say the 61-year-old former Warner Media executive in Europe, who grew up in Germany where she trained as a lawyer, has the grit and finesse to handle the often clubby movie industry, especially in France.
Knobloch is not only the first female president of the Cannes Film Festival but the first who is not French, with veteran media and banking executives casting her nomination as an effort to correct the boys’ club environment that actresses say has led to #MeToo scandals.
“It has been a gratifying feeling to give back to an institution at such a crucial moment,” Knobloch told the Financial Times in an interview from Cannes. “Especially on issues close to my heart such as the representation of women.”
Cannes tops all other film gatherings in terms of attendance, with about 15,000 industry professionals attending from 120 countries, and 800 films screened last year. It is also a key hub where global distributors buy movie rights with roughly 2,000 films up for sale, which in past years has led to transactions worth about €1bn.
French cinema has lately faced renewed calls from women for accountability and action to stamp out harassment and sexual assaults. About 150 women, including stars Emmanuelle Béart and Juliette Binoche, signed a “photo manifesto” in Le Monde newspaper that said predatory “aggressors are protected by collective denial” and called for new, stricter laws.
New allegations have also emerged about Alain Sarde, who produced films including The Pianist and Mulholland Drive, which he denied. Actor Gérard Depardieu, a veteran of Cannes festivals, will stand trial in October on charges of sexually assaulting two women. Depardieu denies wrongdoing, and was supported publicly by President Emmanuel Macron.
Judith Godrèche, who has accused two prominent directors of raping her when she was a teenager, this year debuted a short film pointedly called Moi Aussi — French for “me too”.
Knobloch said that, as the first female president of the festival, she “felt a great responsibility” to support women’s issues. In her corporate career, she has worked in male-dominated bastions with big personalities, for example as lead independent director on the board of hotels group Accor alongside ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy.
“I am delighted in France the voices of women are being heard and women have been given the courage to speak out,” she said.
But Knobloch also insisted this year’s festival had not been overshadowed by controversies: “Cannes has gone incredibly well this year,” she said. “It was about cinema.”
The festival last year showcased movies that went on to win Oscars such as The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall. For Knobloch, Cannes is about being a “launch pad for success” for films that may otherwise not gather recognition outside the countries where they were made, and boosting the commercial chances for independent filmmakers.
Knobloch is seen as having the steel to help bring France’s film industry through a difficult period, with ticket sales last year still below pre-pandemic levels.
She has a strong moral compass, according to Gerhard Zeiler, president of international for Warner Bros Discovery, who long worked with her. Zeiler said she had a “relentless desire to fight” for results, but in the right way. Her media credentials were crucial: “She can talk to producers, she can talk to the talent, she can talk to politicians. She can handle the whole ecosystem.”
Knobloch’s character was shaped by her mother, Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and prominent Jewish campaigner in Germany.
“Her family history has left her with strength and resilience, but also a real joie de vivre,” said investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, who forged a friendship with Knobloch that led to their founding of a special purpose acquisition company that now owns French music streaming service Deezer. “She has an iron fist in a velvet glove.”
An avid skier, Knobloch recently joined the board of Vail Resorts, operator of a Colorado ski area.
She admits Cannes has thrust her further into the “limelight”. She left Warner Bros to lead the Spac backed by Pigasse and luxury billionaire François-Henri Pinault, and is also on the board of investment bank Lazard.
Knobloch is at home in Cannes, having first attended in 1998 and having brought Warner’s award-winning 2011 silent movie The Artist to the festival for its world premiere.
It is an uncertain time for the movie industry, which emerged from the pandemic and the shutdown in the US caused by actor and worker strikes in 2023 with blockbusters such as Oppenheimer and Barbie.
Hollywood studios Paramount, Disney and Warner Bros Discovery have — alongside streaming services Netflix and Amazon — sought to cut costs as they start to chase profitability over subscriber growth. Knobloch’s appointment was seen by some executives as helping bring Hollywood back to the festival, given her US contacts, prompting grumbling in the French cinema ranks.
The hangover from the US strikes may mean fewer hits, and some analysts predict sluggish global movie revenues this year.
Critics have said this is not a classic edition of Cannes, with poor reviews for some prominent movies including Megalopolis, a science-fiction film from Francis Ford Coppola.
“There are a lot of questions at the moment [about the future of film] but this is good,” Knobloch said, insisting that cinema still has a crucial role despite the growing importance to the movie “ecosystem” of streaming. “We are at an interesting point when the industry is reinventing itself.”
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