The Cannes Film Festival could be the latest event to encounter a shakeup due to labor group action as the Sous les écrans la dèche, a collective of French film festival workers, has called for a strike of the event if unemployment benefits are not extended to their members. In a response issued Tuesday, the festival urged the need for both sides to come together to find a resolution.
In a public statement published Monday, the labor group said that despite the “intermittent nature of our profession,” their activity doesn’t fall within France’s unemployment benefits plan, meaning workers are suffering in between festivals.
“We demand that the organizations which employ us be affiliated to a collective agreement allowing us to be hired under the status of show business worker’s intermittence and that our positions be integrated to the unemployment benefit system, retroactive to the last 18 months,” the statement reads, adding that their warnings and demands have been received “with polite consideration” thus far but no concrete changes have been made.
“That is why the upcoming opening of the Cannes festival is leaving us with a bitter taste,” the statement continues. “In a context of extreme vulnerability and absolute emergency to protect our work, and after consultation and vote of the members of the collective, we call for a strike of all employees of the Cannes Film Festival and of its sidebars.”
In response, the Cannes Film Festival, the Quinzaine de Cinéastes, the Semaine de la Critique and the ACID said on Tuesday they’re “aware of the difficulties faced by some of their staff who, working on strings of contracts for film festivals, are affected by the reform of the French unemployment insurance scheme, and must grapple with a drop in their benefits.”
The collective response said the groups “hope that solutions will be found” and are “prepared to set up lasting dialogue conditions to support them.”
“Aware of the sounding board that the Cannes Festival and its parallel selections represent, we understand the timeliness of these demands,” the Cannes response said. “But in order to undertake a constructive reflection aimed at reforming the status of these workers, all the festivals concerned, the institutions and the unions need to come together around the bargaining table. This is the work that must now be undertaken collectively.”
The Cannes Film Festival kicks off on May 14 and runs through May 25, and these actions could seriously hinder the annual event that serves as a launchpad for some of the biggest and most acclaimed films of the year. This year’s festival will play host to George Miller’s prequel “Furiosa,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” Francis Ford Coppola’s epic “Megalopolis” and more.
Read the Sous les écrans la dèche’s full statement below.
For a year now, we, members of the Sous les écrans la dèche (Broke Behind the Screens) collective, have been warning about the growing precariousness of the people working in film festivals.
We go from short-term missions to periods of unemployment and despite the intermittent nature of our profession and our striving for the circulation of cinematographic work, our activity does not fall within the French intermittent status benefit plan for show business workers!
The latest reforms of unemployment benefits in France and the one scheduled for July 1st of this year, which will be passed by decree, are further hardening the benefit rules for employment seekers.
These reforms are throwing festival workers in such precariousness that the majority of us will have to give up our jobs, thus jeopardizing the events we take part in.
Therefore, we demand that the organizations which employ us be affiliated to a collective agreement allowing us to be hired under the status of show business worker’s intermittence and that our positions be integrated to the unemployment benefit system, retroactive to the last 18 months.
Our warnings and demands have been received with polite consideration so far, but no concrete measure has been offered by the CNC or the Ministry of Culture.
That is why the upcoming opening of the Cannes festival is leaving us with a bitter
taste.
In a context of extreme vulnerability and absolute emergency to protect our work, and after consultation and vote of the members of the collective, we call for a strike of all employees of the Cannes Film Festival and of its sidebars.
