Cannes Film Festival, that movie-appreciation club that assembles annually in Leonardo DiCaprio’s playground to yell about film, loves a rule. It loves a rule! It loves to ban some stuff, and issue mandates about other stuff. Women’s flats, for example, were allegedly banned from gala premieres. In 2015, a group of women were turned away from a Carol screening, of all things, because they weren’t wearing heels. And this year, the year of our Lord 2018—more than a decade after the first iPhone was invented—selfies will be banned. Not all photos taken with a phone. Just selfies.
“Selfies will be banned for spectators on the red carpet,” Fremaux told the Film Francais magazine. But it was unclear whether the ban will also apply to the cast and crew of the films being shown, said Thierry Fremaux.
“The triviality and slowdown caused by the unwanted disorder created by the practice of selfies harms the quality of the climb up the steps, and so the entire festival,” he added.
Instead he pleaded with filmgoers, who are usually dressed to the nines in tuxedos and evening gowns, to contain themselves as much as they could.
Hollywood stars have also been known to take selfies of themselves on the Cannes red carpet.
Fremaux also raised the hackles of some film critics with major changes to the timings of press screenings, which were traditionally held before the gala red carpet premieres in the evenings.
But critics will now have to wait for the to see half of the films in the main competition, while others will be shown at the same time.
