You want to be in the limelight at Cannes? When are we going to sleep together?
A few weeks ago, the newspaper Libération gathered several testimonies that reveal moral and sexual harassment on behalf director Joachim Lafosse. It's a control system that's been in place for 20 years.
Leila Albayaty is an actress and director, and on the Mont des Arts show on BX1, she shared to her personal experiences in the world of cinema and she denounced a system:
"Every time I present, every that I speak about my film to a salesman, a distributor, he makes me feel... as if he doesn't even recall my name? And then, he calls me in the morning, in the evening, and then the next day, he tells me... Your name is Leïla, and then he tells me, here, I'll give you my card. And it's often like that."
The director also remembers the Cannes Film Festival:
"In Cannes, many times, people told me, so... Ah, you're going to be there? Ah, great! And when do you want to climb the steps of the red carpet with me? So, when are we going to sleep together? And all that in front of everyone, it's very, very humiliating."
Leila Albayaty has had the same experience many times on set:
"On set, I've had many stories with male technicians who tell me, if it's not give and take, we're not doing the job. There are many stories like that. So I can say that at some point, it's almost a very difficult thing, as a woman, you have to fight to succeed in making a film, really fight against this system."
(MH with JcM/Source: BX1/Photo: Rashi Kaira via WikiCommons under license Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0.)
