Still recovering from all the glitz of the Met Gala? Well, you better ready yourself, for the Hollywood set is already on to the next extremely glamorous gathering: the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Beyond simply basking in the fabulousness of the French Riviera, celebrities pull out some of the most show-stopping fashions to celebrate the films being screened. There’s couture! There are very, very high slits! There are even unicorns, occasionally! The red carpet is on another level over in Cannes, and this year’s lineup exceeds the already-quite-high expectation we’ve set for festival fashion. See how Julianne Moore, Lupita Nyong’o, Cate Blanchett, and many more are dressing all the way up in the south of France this year.
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As of Friday, Jenner hadn’t attended any films—but she was at the Secret Chopard Party that night, wearing a short, sheer green Alexandre Vauthier minidress blinged out with glitter (and accessorized with Chopard earrings, of course) that caught the camera flashes. No bra, no worries.
PHOTO: Antony Jones/Getty Images for Chopard
She caught the look on her Instagram stories, too.
But a new day calls for a new dress, and on Saturday, she hit the red carpet for the premiere of Girls of the Sun (the only female-directed film in competition at this year’s Cannes, BTW) in an naked dress that was otherwise opposite in every way: long to Friday’s short, tulle to Friday’s mesh, white to Friday’s black. It’s sort of like if a Bond girl was also an angel. Should you be considering a major investment, it hails from Schiaparelli’s Fall/Winter 2017-2018 couture collection.
Ava DuVernay, Kristen Stewart, Jane Fonda, Marion Cotillard, and Salma Hayek are among the 82 women who took part in a powerful protest gesture at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday to highlight how difficult it is for women to climb the professional ladder in the film industry. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the group walked up the steps leading to the festival’s Théâtre Debussy, paused midway, and silently faced the central Palais building.
Actress Cate Blanchett, who is this year’s competition jury president, and Belgian film director Agnès Varda also presented a joint statement:
“On these steps today stand 82 women representing the number of female directors who have climbed these stairs since the first edition of the Cannes Film Festival in 1946. In the same period 1,688 male directors have climbed these very same stairs. In the 71 years of this world-renowned festival there have been 12 female heads of its juries. The prestigious Palme d’Or has been bestowed upon 71 male directors—too numerous to mention by name—but only two women, Jane Campion, who is with us in spirit, and Agnès Varda, who stands with us today,” said Blanchett.
“These facts are stark and undeniable. Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of our industry says otherwise. As women, we all face our own unique challenges, but we stand together on these stairs today as a symbol of our determination and commitment to progress. We are writers, producers, directors, actresses, cinematographers, talent agents, editors, distributors, sales agents and all involved in the cinematic arts. We stand in solidarity with women of all industries,” they continued.
They then read a list of powerful demands:
“We will expect our institutions to actively provide parity and transparency in their executive bodies and safe environments in which to work. We will expect our governments to make sure that the laws of equal pay for equal work are upheld. We will demand that our workplaces are diverse and equitable so that they can best reflect the world in which we actually live. A world that allows all of us behind and in front of the camera to thrive shoulder to shoulder with our male colleagues. We acknowledge all of the women and men who are standing for change. The stairs of our industry must be accessible to all. Let’s climb.”
PHOTO: Gisela Schober/Getty Images
The dramatic gesture was organized by 5050×2020, a French equality movement, and took place just before the premiere of Girls of the Sun, a film by Eva Husson. Husson is the only French female director in the competition this year, and she told Vanity Fair that it’s critical to initiate conversations around gender inequality in film.
“It’s high time. It’s healthy. It’s scary. It’s exploding in the face of a lot of people,” she said. “The patriarchy has not seen it coming so they feel really threatened by it. It’s a huge paradigm shift.”
But many people have pointed out that Cannes still needs to figure out its own gender gap issues. This year, only three of the 21 directors competing for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize are women. The festival also faced backlash for including a film by Lars von Trier, the Danish director who had been banned from the festival for seven years after making anti-Semitic remarks and whose production company has been accused of sexual harassment.
After Saturday’s dramatic statement, women will continue staging acts to call attention to gender disparity. On Monday, Vanity Fair also reports that women are planning to ask members of the Directors’ Fortnight and Cannes Critics’ Week panel to sign a pledge that calls for more inclusion and diversity.
With help from the French government, the Cannes Film Festival is planning to launch a hotline that victims can call to report incidents of sexual assault or harassment at the event this year, following allegations that producer Harvey Weinstein had assaulted multiple women during the prestigious festival in the past.
At a press conference in Paris Friday, Marlène Schiappa, France’s gender equality minister, said those attending the festival would be warned to mind their behavior when they arrive at the French Riviera for the 2018 festival, which kicks off May 8, according to Agence France-Presse,
“We’ve gone into partnership with the Cannes Film Festival to tackle sexual harassment and set up a helpline,” Schiappa said at the event. “One of the rapes that Harvey Weinstein is accused of happened at Cannes, and so the festival cannot fail to act.”
Actresses including Alice Evans, Annabella Sciorra, Judith Godrèche, and Zoë Brock have all come forward with stories of unwanted advances Weinstein allegedly made toward them at hotels during the multiday film festival. Actress Asia Argento told The New Yorker that in the French Riviera in 1997, Weinstein forcibly performed an oral sex act on her. Weinstein has denied all nonconsensual sexual activity.
Cannes has spoken out against Weinstein in the past. After accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse were reported in The New Yorker and The New York Times, festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Pierre Lescure released a statement, condemning his actions.
“These acts are part of an unpardonable behavior that can only give rise to a clear and unqualified condemnation,” the statement read. “Our thoughts go to the victims, to those women who have had the courage to testify and to all the others. May this case help to denounce once again serious and unacceptable practices.”
People have criticized Cannes for other issues of gender inequality and representation over the years. Although Cate Blanchett was chosen to be this year’s jury president, The Guardian points out that few women directors actually make it into the annual festival selections (only three women will compete for the top festival prize, the Palme d’Or, this year). The upcoming competition also marks a return for Lars von Trier, the Danish director whose production company was accused of sexual harassment and who had been banned from the festival for seven years after making anti-Semitic remarks.
