Cannes 2026<\/a> Palme d\u2019Or contenders Arthur Harari and Bertrand Mandico as well as directors Yann Gonzalez, Sepideh Farsi and Jean-Pascal Zadi and actors Ad\u00e8le Haenel, Zita Hanrot, Samuel Kircher, Ariane Labed, Anna Mouglalis.<\/p>\n\n\tThe international support comes just days after Maxime Saada, Canal+ Chair and CEO hit back at the open letter saying his group would no longer work with its signatories.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe letter has sparked a mixed response from French professionals. While there is widespread sympathy for the concerns it raises, some hold that there are no signs of political interference in Canal+\u2019s cinema activities as yet.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the backdrop, Deadline hears some producers are furious about the timing of letter which has dropped while independent producer syndicates are in negotiations with Canal+ over its future cinema spending plans.<\/p>\n
\n\tCanal+ is France\u2019s biggest non-state cinema funder. In an accord agreed with the main producer associations in March 2025, the group pledged \u20ac480m ($558m) for cinema over three years, split between \u20ac150m (($174m) in 2025, \u20ac160m ($186m) in 2026 and\u00a0\u20ac170m ($197m) in 2027.<\/p>\n
\n\tHowever, Saada\u2019s threat to boycott the letter\u2019s original signatories has also provoked indignation and a ground swell of support for those targeted.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s sense that everyone needs to sign this letter now to cancel Saada\u2019s threat,\u201d one industry figure told Deadline on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn the sidelines of the debate, the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), representing 10,000 writers across Europe, put out a statement on Thursday<\/a> saying that the Canal+ case was symptomatic of growing threats to freedom of creation and expression across the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An open letter, initiated by members of the French cinema world to protest tycoon Vincent Bollor\u00e9\u2019s growing control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,15297,43877,225439,5328,361,75,45887,251354,8553,251355],"class_list":["post-686015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canal","tag-cannes","tag-cannes-2026","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-javier-bardem","tag-ken-loach","tag-mark-ruffalo","tag-time-to-switch-off-bolloru00e9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}