Festival Leaders Confront Growing Political Pressure at Lumiere Summit: ‘We Don’t Judge Artists by Their Passport’

Political pressure on film and television festivals emerged as a defining theme of a panel discussion Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, with Séries Mania general director Laurence Herszberg issuing the session’s most direct call for protection of programming autonomy.

“We don’t judge artists by their passport, we judge them by their works,” Herszberg said.

The panel, titled “Easy to Criticize, Impossible to Replace: Rethinking the Festival” and moderated by Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film at MoMA, brought together festival chiefs from Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, San Sebastián, Annecy, Mumbai, Durban, the Red Sea and South by Southwest. It covered three areas: audiences and community, how festivals relate to the media, and the mounting economic and political strains on festival leadership.

Herszberg was direct on the political pressure facing her and her peers. “We feel more and more under pressure from different groups,” she said. “They might be politicians, they might be just people who disagree with the representation of some countries.” As general director of Séries Mania – a free-access festival that featured more than 112.000 participants, 5.200 professionals of the industry and +600 journalists this year – she said controlling who walks through the door is not possible. “We have to be protected, and we still have to go on and fight for the artists,” Herszberg said.