On Friday, May 23, when the Golden Palme competition started its last day and the Croisette slowly started emptying, a press conference was held at the Palestinian Pavilion of the Cannes Festival. The objective? “Denounces (ER) The murder of Fatima Hassouna, alert (ER) on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the imperative need for an international, coordinated and immediate response.” With messages from Adèle Haenel, Ken Loach and Paul Laverty, the conference was animated, among others by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur of the United Nations in the Palestinian territories, and the Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, whose documentary was selected at ACID this year.
Even before its opening, the festival was hit by the war in the Gaza Strip. On April 15, ACID announced that it has selected Put your soul on your hand and walkin which Sepideh Farsi dialogue, on FaceTime, with Fatima Hassouna, a young Palestinian photojournalist who has remained in the enclave since the start of the conflict. The day after the announcement, Fatima Hassouna and his family die in an Israeli bombardment in the city of Gaza.
An irony of an unthinkable cruelty, which allowed the film to benefit from a more important press and to attract even more attention to the urgency of the situation in the Gaza Strip, where almost 2.1 million people are “In danger of imminent death” According to the World Health Organization (WHO). The testimony of Fatima Hassouna, physically and morally weakened by bombing, mourning and shortages, will remain a strong and essential document. On the evening of the opening ceremony, the president of the jury Juliette Binoche paid tribute to the young woman in a timidly committed speech.
It is certain that the Cannes Film Festival is a bubble, disconnected by many aspects of the reality of the outside world. But international news always ends up arising in art. And a year and a half after October 7, the war in Gaza is now interfering in Cannes programming, through a multitude of selected films. If the Documentary of Sepideh Farsi offers a devastating look at the destruction of the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, Once Upon a Time in Gazaselected in the Un Certain Regard section, was shot before October 7, 2023. This fiction film, directed by the Arab brothers and Tarzan Nasser, is a plea for the survival of Palestinian cinema.
What role for the artist in the face of war?
But it was at the fortnight of filmmakers that we could see one of the strongest films – and the most current – of this 2025 edition. Yes (title Yes in French), produced by the Israeli Nadav Lapid, imagines the trajectory of a Tel Aviv musician who, after October 7, agrees to work on a “New Israeli hymn”. The “yes” of the title therefore refers to the resignation of this artist, who agrees to line up on the side of propaganda. “It allowed me to ask questions about the artist’s role when his country is executing the worst”explains Nadav Lapid, which we had the opportunity to meet in Cannes.
The director of Synonyms (Golden bear at Berlinale in 2019) and Ahed’s knee (Prix du jury ex AEQUO of the Cannes Film Festival in 2021) has always been very critical of the policy of his country. After several films devoted to virulent characters, “Who shout” no, no, no “until their voice is broken”he wanted for the first time to be interested in the prospect of a passive and depoliticized hero. “We know that courage has become a very rare quality in the world. I think we make too many films on courageous people. If we want to talk about the world today, we have to make films on cowards. ”
Yes is a maximalist film, a whirlwind of anger, music and very black humor which leaves little respite to the spectator. “The moment is so huge, odious and unprecedented, that I told myself that I had to summon all the tools of cinema, all the staging that I know, all the colors, all the genres of the cinema and all the scenes that I could imagine … to be in a certain way up to the momentsays the Israeli filmmaker. The soul is in a state of whirlwind and the cinema is supposed to express this whirlwind. ”
If Nadav Lapid is interested in the figure of resignation and the guilt of artists “Weak in the face of power, in the face of money, faced with the good life they dream of”it is no coincidence. He too wonders about the possibilities and limits of his commitment, as an artist. “I would not be the most original person in the world saying that the disillusionment on the ability of a film to change the world invades me from time to time. And at the same time, I think I am one of those filmmakers who … It’s almost pathetic, but who, deeply, in their hearts, still believe in it. So they disappoint each time again. ”
A film that “scares”
Shot in a country at war, Yes was not easy to achieve. Many technicians and actors refused to work on the film, or have abandoned production along the way. “I think some were afraid. It is crazy that a make -up artist tells himself that if he puts lipstick to the actress of my film, he will be in troubledeplores Nadav Lapid. There are also people who have adhered so much to the collective madness of the country, that for them, a film that tells something else is a threat. The phenomenon was really crazy. I heard pompous sentences, one who told me that she could never watch herself in the mirror if she participated in my film, another who told me that it is the end of anti -Zionist films in Israel and that he wanted to remind me that he is an officer in the army … or two actors who had just passed a test, who gave everything to have the role and who were very happy to have it. Two weeks later, we receive a phone call from their agent who announces that they decided to abandon. By turning this film, I felt like I was shooting in the country of the enemy, which is also mine. ”
“The missiles fell around us, we saw the smoke rose from Gaza. Our soundtrack was filled with explosions. ”
D ‘Revelation Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) at Me, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach 2016), passing by Farenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004), The Palmes d’Or Cannes often shed light on the political concerns of their time. We wonder why Yesliving and rabid reflection on one of the worst conflicts of our time, was not selected in competition, unlike the previous film by Nadav Lapid (Ahed’s knee in 2021). “This question, of course, must be asked of the festival selectors, the festival director, the people who made their choicehe replies. I can imagine that the film was too disturbing. Maybe he was even scary. “
When asked what could have scared him, by making this film and showing it in Cannes, the director immediately replied: “10,000 things, 30,000 things. The film was shot in the middle of a war, which still continues. The missiles fell around us, we saw the smoke that rose from Gaza. Our soundtrack was filled with explosions. ”
One of the most striking and disturbing scenes of the film was shot on a hill overlooking the Gaza strip, 600 meters from the bombing. “By making a panoramic, we saw death and nothingness. It’s a bit strange to be afraid, given all that. Yes, of course, I am afraid of being misunderstood, I’m afraid of what people think. But finally … it’s strange to make a film on a tsunami and to be afraid of staging. ”
The film, which brews discourse and reflections on war, but also romance, action, sensuality, road moviefuturistic scenes and satire, recalls that the political context of a country is inseparable from the art created there. Nadav Lapid was asked if we can separate the artist from his nationality. The Israeli filmmaker took the time to think, before making a comparison: “There is a moment in the film where Jasmine, the female heroine,” talks about their child. She wants him to grow in Europe, that he forgets that he was born in Israel, that he forgets that this country exists and that when he will hear about Israel by chance on the radio, he will be bored and put a song. Me, it will not happen to me in this life. ”
