A group of feminist protesters staged a dramatic scene at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, unleashing smoke from portable devices and displaying a long banner for the global press.
At the premiere of director Ali Abbasi’s women’s thriller ‘Holy Spider’, about 12 women in formal wear gathered on the palace’s famous staircase with their fists raised – filling the room with thick black smoke and holding a scroll with a list of 129 woman names. The list, the group says, highlights “129 feminicides in France since the last Cannes festival.” Femicide is the intentional killing of women because they are female.
Security forces seemed unfazed by the event and allowed the protesters to be filmed and photographed. An insider close to the production said the protest was not a coordinated stunt to promote the film, about a journalist traveling to Iran’s holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer murdering sex workers.
According to website Challenges, the protest was instead linked to Sunday’s screening of the documentary “Riposte” in Cannes, which is about feminist activists.
The protest took place before the Holy Spider cast and filmmakers arrived, the source said, adding that the caravan of vehicles carrying talent was briefly stopped on Boulevard de la Croisette before arriving at the top of the red carpet .
The film is based on the dark true story of serial killer Saeed Hanaei, who believed he was on a sacred mission to cleanse the streets of sin, according to the film’s synopsis. Abbasi wrote the screenplay with Afshin Kamran Bahrami. The film stars Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Mehdi Bajestani.
This is the second feminist protest the Cannes Film Festival will see in 2022. On Friday, an activist attending the world premiere of George Miller’s “3000 Years of Our Lives” staged a protest against alleged sexual violence by Russian forces against women in Ukraine. While the guest entered the event according to the premiere dress code, she removed her dress to reveal her stomach, which was painted with the phrase “Stop Raping Us” written next to the colors of the Ukrainian flag.