The 75th Cannes Film Festival was rocked by another day of protests, this time with a group of feminists unfurling a banner and using handheld smoke devices while on the red carpet.
It happened during the star-studded festival when about a dozen women dressed in black gowns took to the stairs of the famed Palais in France and dropped a giant banner with the names of “129 feminicides in France since the last Cannes festival,” according to the group, reported Variety. The outlet noted that the term “feminicides” means “intentional killing of women because they are female.”
The ladies, who are members of the feminist movement “Les Colleuses,” stood on the steps while holding their fists in the air. They released canisters sending up black smoke as they held a banner that contained the names of women who allegedly died as a result of domestic violence since the previous festival, reported the Hollywood Reporter.
The feminist collective known as "Les Colleuses" stormed the #Cannes red carpet with a banner that listed the "129 feminicides in France since the last Cannes Film Festival." Feminicide is the killing of women because they are female. https://t.co/Pw3cwYDeYB
— Variety (@Variety) May 22, 2022
The protest took place before the screening of a film called “Holy Spider,” a thriller by Iranian-Danish film director Ali Abbasi.
However, according to the website Challenges, the protest wasn’t about “Holy Spider,” but was instead connected to “Riposte,” a documentary that was screened on Sunday, which is about feminist activists, the outlet noted.
The demonstration followed another just two days earlier when a woman stripped off her gown and ran topless on the red carpet. She had her body painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag with the message “Stop raping us” on one part of her body, and the word “scum” on another, as previously reported by The Daily Wire.
The woman was removed from the Cannes event after she dropped to her knees and started screaming in front of photographers. It came just ahead of the screening of George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing.”