She will replace Pierre Lescure on July 1 after the 2022 edition of the Festival.
From July 1, Pierre Lescure will leave his position as president of the Cannes festival to Iris Knobloch for a 3-year term. The board of directors of the festival met today to elect, with 18 votes for, 6 against, 3 whites and a draw, this former president of Warner Bros France until 2020.
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But before proceeding with this election, the 28-member board of directors had some discussions. Some members criticized the Ministry of Culture for not having launched consultation upstream to find out if other candidates could emerge. A first vote has however ratified the question of an immediate election, Iris Knobloch being the only member of the board of directors candidate. Véronique Cayla, former president of the CNC and Arte did not show up.
Conflict of interest issues
But then the delicate question of the problems of possible conflicts of interest of Iris Knobloch at the head of this institution was rested by the SACD, society of management of the rights of authors. Indeed, Iris Knobloch has launched with Mathieu Pigasse and Artemis, the holding company of the Pinault family, a SPAC called I2PO whose aim is to invest in entertainment and leisure companies. Due to her position within I2PO, Iris Knobloch may have conflicts of interest because on the one hand the luxury group Kering, owned by the Pinault family, is a sponsor of the festival and on the other hand because the SPAC is likely to invest in audiovisual and film production companies.
On this question of conflict of interest, some of the 16 professionals (producers, distributors, exhibitors) on the board of directors have recognized that any professional could potentially be in conflict. It was therefore decided to include conflict of interest rules in the statutes of the Cannes Film Festival.
But before being elected, Iris Knobloch had to agree to withdraw from any decision of the Festival’s board of directors concerning Kering. In addition, it has undertaken that I2PO will not invest in areas related to audiovisual and cinematographic production.
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