“The Russians are killing the Ukrainians. Do you find it offensive and disturbing to talk about this genocide? The message, written in capital letters on a large banner, was held at arm’s length, for more than a minute, by the Ukrainian film crew Bachennya Metelyka (Butterfly vision in French), presented this Wednesday afternoon at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard selection.
This static and silent demonstration against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought together around twenty people, including director Maksim Nakonechnyi and his actors, on the steps of the Debussy theater where a screening was scheduled for 5 p.m.
The film butterfly vision tells the story of Lilia, a former prisoner of war in the Donbas region, who suffers from post-traumatic stress.
“Sensitive Content”
Participants, mostly dressed in evening wear, covered their faces with translucent signs displaying the symbol of a crossed-out eye and the text “sensitive content” in English, in reference to publications hidden because identified as sensitive on the network social instagram.
Last Thursday, representatives of Ukrainian cinema demanded the total exclusion of Russian films from the Cannes Film Festival. The next day, a woman, bare-chested painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag with the words in English “stop raping us”, burst onto the red carpet of the large auditorium, on the occasion of the presentation of the film Three thousand years waiting for youby George Miller.