Cannes no more about films but fashion: Vivek Agnihotri lambasts French festival

Cannes (France), 22nd May 2023: After emphasising that the Cannes Film Festival is for films, not fashion, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri took to Twitter again on Monday to express his sadness with the festival’s “death.” He pointed out that the people turning eyeballs on the Cannes red carpet were not even actors or in any way associated to cinema.

Sharing a screenshot of a newspaper article depicting several celebrities on the Cannes red carpet, he wrote, “So sad to see the death of Cannes Film Festival. Most of these are not even actors or have any film showing at Cannes. Films are replaced with fashion. Actors with SM influencers. Film Journalism with… you know what… And FILMMAKERS… who cares about them? Om Shanti!”

Just a couple of days ago he had raised concerns on the matter and had tweeted, “Do you know that Cannes Film Festival is about films? I thought I should remind you just in case you were thinking it’s a fashion show.”

Along with the tweet he had attached a photo of Aishwarya Rai posing for pictures on the Red Carpet.

Not only Vivek, but Nandita Das and Meera Chopra have commented about how the Cannes Film Festival is now primarily about fashion.

Nandita shared numerous throwback photos of herself in sarees from her last Cannes visit and on Sunday and commented, “Sadly missing Cannes this year. Sometimes people seem to forget that it is a festival of films and not of clothes! Considering I can’t show you the amazing films I watched or the conversations I have had or take you back in time when Manto premiered there.”

Aishwarya Rai, Diana Penty, Sara Ali Khan, Esha Gupta, Vijay Varma, Manushi Chillar, Mrunal Thakur, Sapna Choudhary, and Urvashi Rautela have all walked the Cannes red carpet this year. The 76th Cannes Film Festival 2023 began on May 16 and will conclude on May 27.