Cannes 2021, a pioneering film festival in its ecological commitment?
“Animal”, by Cyril Dion (France), screened in the short-lived selection of films on the environment at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. © Capa Studio - Bright Bright Bright - UGC Images
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
10 mins
Climate change also poses a crucial question for the film industry: do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?
The Cannes Film Festival this year took the solemn decision to display ecological commitments for the first time and to program a selection of films on the environment.
Credible action or publicity stunt?
Publicity
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What will be the two biggest challenges facing the Cannes Film Festival in the coming years?
Probably the revolution caused by the platforms… and the climatic catastrophe which looms on the horizon.
With its action "
Cinema for the climate
", the largest film festival in the world declares that "
the 2021 edition will be that of the next world for a festival of always
" and promises to "
completely rethink the way of producing the Cannes Film Festival
”.
"Cinematically embody this ecological commitment"
Six documentaries and one fiction are supposed to “
cinematically embody this commitment
”. Will they be a game-changer? Even if they are not in the running for the Palme d'Or, they compose the first selection of films on the environment in the history of the Festival. Frenchman Cyril Dion alerts us in
Animal
about the extinction of species.
Walking on water
(Niger-France) by Aïssa Maïga takes us to a Nigerien village victim of global warming. Indian Rahul Jain thrills us with
Invisible Demons
, a shocking documentary on pollution in India. And in
The Crusade
, Louis Garrel and the late Jean-Claude Carrière empower children or rather show how children decide to take their destiny into their own hands in the face of looming catastrophes.
"
Awareness and defense of the planet are also played out in the cinema
", affirms Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate, wishing to raise the commitment and ecological practices of Cannes to the highest level.
And that from this year.
“
We are the first festival to display environmental convictions
,” underlines Frémaux.
Even the red carpet, now fully recyclable and recycled, is subject to the new regime and will be changed half as much as in previous years.
The Festival also stops distributing, as in 2019, more than 22,000 plastic water bottles.
Thierry Frémaux during the press conference for the opening of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival © Siegfried Forster / RFI
Each festival-goer must pay an environmental contribution of 20 euros
As for the directors,
Nathan Grossman
, a Swedish documentary filmmaker who preferred to spend 34 hours on the train rather than taking the plane to present his film on Greta Thunberg at the Venice Film Festival, remains the absolute exception. At the Cannes Film Festival, starting this year, each festival-goer (whether taking the train, car or private jet to arrive on the Croisette), is obliged to pay an “
environmental contribution of 20 euros (excluding taxes)
” to compensate the carbon footprint of the event which is, according to official figures, 89% attributable to the travel of the participants. The proceeds will be "
entirely intended for the financing of carbon offset programs with local, national and international influence
".
A leading figure in world cinema, the Festival de Cannes thus claims among the major film festivals a pioneering role in the field.
Without spreading over the number of landings and take-offs of planes at Cannes airport during the month of the Festival (estimated in 2018 by an ecological association at 1,700), Frémaux admits that "
there are sometimes aberrations
”.
During the press conference, he even openly asked the question: "
Is it really necessary for an American producer to take the plane to sign his contract in Cannes
"?
While giving the answer: “
For the moment, I think so.
"
The film industry, a very polluting industry?
There remains another annoying question: should we consider the film industry as a very polluting industry?
Full of good will, the general delegate admits that he is not currently in a position to communicate the carbon footprint of the last festival in 2019: “
On the details of the figures,
I
am not a specialist, I will not have fun with answer you.
"
Why ?
Would the publication of the ecological report risk lasting damage to the glamorous and glittery image of the biggest cinematographic event in the world?
Or is there simply no global accounting for the CO2 emissions produced by the festival?
“Animal”, by Cyril Dion (France), screened in the short-lived selection of films on the environment at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. © Capa Studio - Bright Bright Bright - UGC Images
The Carbon Clap, a carbon footprint calculator
One thing is certain: for film production, the tools exist.
It has been more than ten years since the French collective Ecoprod set up the Carbon 'Clap, the first carbon footprint calculator dedicated to audiovisual production.
“
It allows each audiovisual or cinematographic production to estimate its carbon footprint quite precisely.
The Carbon Clap is a decision support tool and helps identify the stations that emit the most.
Is it the travel of technicians and actors, the construction of the sets, the canteen…
?
Each film is broken down into fifteen or twenty items of expenditure,
”explains Baptiste Heynemann, general delegate of the CST (one of the associations of historical technicians of French cinema) which is a member of the Ecoprod collective, created in 2009.
An award for environmentally friendly films?
An evolution that also seems inevitable for the films selected at the Cannes Film Festival. For the moment, the Festival is rightly proud to have given a historic signal by choosing the African-American director Spike Lee to be the first black president of the prestigious jury. On the other hand, no one mentioned that Lee received in 2018, in the United States, the Green Seal EMA Award, an award for sustainable films, for
BlacKKKlansman
, which was presented and acclaimed at Cannes. Is there a similar price in France? "
In France, we do not have a comparable price for fiction,"
notes Baptiste Heynemann.
We have a comparable prize in the advertising sector, the Deauville Green Award, given to advertising produced in a manner that respects the environment.
"
In the meantime, the pressure of public opinion is mounting, and it is probably not by simply showing films on the environment that the Cannes Film Festival will take up the challenge that it has launched itself. Some still remember the release of
Waterworld
, in 1995, a post-apocalyptic blockbuster starring Kevin Costner on the consequences of climate change, but which ultimately went down in history especially for its unfriendly filming. During the Cannes 2016 edition, superstar Leonardo DiCaprio made waves as an award winner for his ecological commitment. A reward that he personally sought in New York with a return trip by private jet to return in time for the Cannes Film Festival.
Baptiste Heynemann, General Delegate of the CST and member of the Ecoprod collective.
© Siegfried Forster / RFI
For a long time these "missteps" were treated as news items or details swallowed up in a tide of defeatist news.
Today, more and more spectators are asking the question of the legitimacy of a director to send his film crew 10,000 kilometers by plane for a one-second shot.
Is there an obligation to display the carbon footprint of each film?
To become credible, should the Cannes Film Festival force the selected films to display their carbon footprint?
Lapidary response from Thierry Frémaux: “
I do not believe that we will display the carbon cost of a film, unless Radio France Internationale displays the carbon cost of its radio broadcasts every morning.
"
In the meantime, the National Cinema Center (CNC) in France will present its ambitious “Action! ". According to its president Dominique Boutonnat, it aims to "
support the sector to meet climate challenges and make it a driver of the ecological and energy transformation of our country." It is a fundamental revolution, there will be a before and an after
”. Among other things, the plan provides from the year 2023 to make “
compulsory the realization of a carbon footprint for any work or project financed by the CNC
”.
So, soon also a carbon footprint for each film at Cannes?
“
We should.
We could,
notes Baptiste Heynemann.
I know that
Cyril Dion's
film
Animal
did a fairly precise carbon balance.
Because production has a global, holistic approach to its profession and says to itself: you have to work on the content, what you are going to show on the screen, what you are going to talk about, and the ways of doing things, containers.
"
A Palme d'Or for a film in the service of the environment?
And who knows, maybe the Cannes Film Festival will soon be proud to award, beyond the Palme d'Or for feature films and another Palme d'Or for short films, also a Palme in the category of environmental films.
“Bigger Than Us”, by Flore Vasseur (France), screened in the short-lived selection of films on the environment at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. © Elze'Vir Films - Big Mother Productions
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