The TikTok Eklat
As of 5:34 p.m
Ex-President of the TikTok jury: the director Rithy Panh
Source: Getty Images/Thomas Niedermueller
In order to attract a young audience, the Cannes Film Festival announced a competition for TikTok short films for the first time. In the meantime, the project threatened to fail. This shows the gulf between China and the West when it comes to artistic freedom.
Et was an attempt, perhaps a later one, but one that had to be undertaken: the Cannes Festival’s cooperation with the video platform TikTok operated by a Chinese company. Some wanted to gain visibility among the billions of young users, others wanted to bring a kind of cultural respectability. Now the attempt has failed spectacularly – before – after a total Chinese loss of face – it was finally saved.
The core of the collaboration, #TikTokShort Film, a competition for short films under the platform’s rules, has fallen through. The reason is not because of artistic differences, but is much more disturbing because it gives us a clear idea of the abyss that lies between China and the West when it comes to artistic freedom.
The rules of the game for #TikTokShort Film seemed clear: any TikTok user could submit a 30-second to three-minute video made according to the channel’s rules, which would be reviewed by an independent jury. Its members were filmmakers Camille Ducellier, Basma Khalifa and Angèle Diabang, as well as TikTok star Khasby Lame.
The Cambodian-French director Rithy Panh, winner of many awards at major festivals and just recently in February with his latest film “Everything Will be OK” in the Berlinale Competition, was won as jury president. The festival didn’t want to award a Golden TikTok Palm, but festival director Thierry Frémaux would have presented the awards in person.
The collaboration wasn’t just some side event of the sprawling festival. 20 prominent TikTok influencers were flown to the Côte d’Azur to shoot videos about their Cannes experiences. A special app was programmed. A 60-minute show was produced that combined red carpet moments with heads swarming Cannes. And then everything collapsed when Rithy Panh contacted the Hollywood Reporter and announced his resignation as president to the industry publication. And chatted about the jury sewing box.
resignation of the President
According to Panh, representatives from TikTok repeatedly interfered in the jury work. When the judges determined their winners, TikTok replaced some of them with videos that management thought should win. Panh, a rather gentle person, suggested another compromise (which, however, contradicted the idea of an independent jury): You could split the main prize and let both the jury and the TikTok candidate win. This was rejected by the management, the jury candidate had “violated the rules of the competition” and had to be disqualified. Good, said Panh, then the jury would have to deliberate again.
But TikTok didn’t want that either. It is now too late for changes and there will only be one winner: the one chosen by the TikTok leadership. Panh called Thierry Frémaux. He encouraged him: “Well, if the situation is like this, then you made the right decision and defended your jury,” quoted Panh Frémaux.
As soon as the story was public, TikTok contacted Panh again and assured – as at the beginning of the project – that the jury would be completely independent. And because Rithy Panh is a personable person, he will attend the awards ceremony, which honors the video makers who should have received the awards in the first place.