"There is a kind of violence, particularly in France, in the reports. Everyone talks to each other with such aggressiveness... I've experienced it," she told AFP.
"We hear a lot from people who are victims of abuse, there are few people in positions of power who say: +We want to reach out and, OK, we hear you and we think we could change things+," adds the 40-year-old actress-director, whose third feature film is in the Un Certain Regard selection.
Thursday, before the presentation of her film, she had evoked "the mythology of the famous genius, this notion of distinction between the work and the individual", pointing to "the humiliations, the denigrations, the anger that an ordinary person can not afford" and, this, while the screening at the opening of the Festival of "Jeanne du Barry" was marked by a controversy.
The director Maïwenn, who herself admitted to having assaulted the journalist Edwy Plenel, played in his film the American Johnny Depp, banned from American film sets since the trials that opposed him to his ex-wife Amber Heard amid accusations of domestic violence.
"I talked about cinema because it's my job. I read the letter of Adele (Haenel, who announced to stop the cinema, Editor's note), there is this tribune of actresses and actors. I felt like I had to position myself because I was being challenged on this subject," Chokri told AFP.
"This is not at all an injunction towards the Festival because, first of all, I am there. I agreed to go, so I wasn't against the Festival or its choices. It concerns the job in general, "says the Quebecer.
"Speeches are political as are non-speeches," she insists. Silence is also political, it is corroborating a system. It takes courage to position yourself."
For Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, who plays Sophia in "Simple comme Sylvain", the speech given by the director before the film "is in total symbiosis and coherence with her way of working. We made this film in love, thanks to her."
© 2023 AFP