CANNES, France — The tough new red carpet dress code at the Cannes Film Festival has already claimed its first celebrity casualty, ahead of Tuesday night’s gala opening.
Halle Berry, the Oscar-winning actress who is one of two American members of the Palme d’Or jury, said Tuesday that she reluctantly had to alter her wardrobe plans after learning of the new Cannes ban on “excessively voluminous” dresses with a “large train” — although she’s in favour of the fest’s other new no-no: “full nudity.”
“I had an amazing dress by Gupta I could wear tonight, but I cannot wear it because the train is too big,” Berry said at the press conference introducing the nine-member international Palme jury.
“Of course I’m going to follow the rules, so I had to make a pivot. But the nudity (ban) I do think is probably also a good rule.”
The festival announced late Monday it’s beefing up its already strict rules regarding attire on the scarlet staircase leading into the Palais des Festivals, beginning with Tuesday night’s world premiere of Amélie Bonnin’s French comedy “Partir un jour (Leave One Day),” the fest’s opening gala screening.
The decorum-minded festival is outlawing “full nudity” on the carpet “in accordance with the institutional framework of the event and French law,” and also nixing clothing that could “obstruct the movement of other guests or complicate seating arrangements in the screening rooms.”
The nine-member jury for the Palme d’Or and other prizes at the Cannes Film Festival meets the press. From left: moderator Didier Allouch, Payal Kapadia, Jeremy Strong, Alba Rohrwacher, Dieudo Hamadi, Juliette Binoche, Hong Sangsoo, Halle Berry, Carlos Reygadas and Leïla Slimani.
Peter HowellThe announcement caught everybody here by surprise, since it seemed Cannes had already nailed down any possible fashion faux pas with its previous bans on flip-flops (and other flats) and red carpet selfies.
French actress Juliette Binoche, another Oscar winner and the president of this year’s Palme jury, expressed support for the relaxation of a previous rule insisting women wear heels on the red carpet.
The revised rules mandate the wearing of “elegant shoes and sandals with or without a heel.” (Sneakers are still banned.)
“On the heels side, I think it is a very good idea,” Binoche said.
Not all of the questions Binoche was asked were so easy to answer.
She was quizzed repeatedly about fellow French actor Gérard Depardieu. The French cinema icon was convicted Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in Paris in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended sentence. He must also pay a 20,000 euro fine and sign a sexual offenders register. Depardieu was Binoche’s co-star in “Let the Sunshine In,” a 2017 film by Claire Denis.
“He’s not a monster, he’s a man who lost his aura,” Binoche said in French. “He’s no longer sacred.”
She expressed support for the #MeToo movement and the festival’s embrace of it.
“There have been great changes occurring in the world. Sometimes (the festival) follows the trend, sometimes it spearheads it. I think the festival is in step with what’s happening today. #MeToo took some time to gain strength. We reacted very strongly recently.”
There were other difficult questions asked and mostly dodged at the press conference, but fans of the James Bond franchise might raise an eyebrow at a comment made by Berry about 007’s gender.
“I don’t know if 007 should be a woman,” said Berry, who played the secret agent Jinx in the 2002 Bond film “Die Another Day.”
“In 2025 it’s nice to say, ‘She should be a woman’ (but) I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.”
She also shot down any chance of a Jinx spinoff movie, which has long been rumoured.
“I doubt there’ll be a Jinx spinoff,” she said. “There was a time that could’ve happened. I’d have loved for that to happen, but that time has passed.”
Besides Berry and Binoche, the Palme jury includes fellow actors Jeremy Strong and Alba Rohrwacher, filmmakers Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangsoo, Payal Kapadia and Carlos Reygadas, and writer Leïla Slimani.
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