致戛纳电影节的公开信

戛纳电影节的放映安排饱受媒体批评，最近不得不发信给媒体表示会改良放映时间，包括增加额外的放映场次。我们对戛纳电影节发出以下的公开信，对他们进行回复：

Dear Cannes Film Festival,

This is Rubing Liang, New York-based freelance writer covering Cannes Film Festival for the 4th year. I am writing in response to your email titled “To the journalists accredited to the Festival de Cannes 2018”, dated 5/4/2018.

It is welcoming that you finally show some signs of commitment to the wellbeing of critics and reporters, who have been experiencing neglect and frustration over the years. And this only comes after people of the press community repeatedly voice their anger about the change of screening schedule without counseling with them and demand changes in your system, such as abolishing the caste system that segregates critics and reporters into different color badge groups.

However, your small improvement on the additional screening time contradicts what you claimed earlier. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in April, Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of the festival, justified the long waiting time before a screening by stating that "there's no longer enough room to accommodate anyone--the Palais des Festival is too small."* Now, with additional screenings you are planning to add, it clearly shows there is more room to accommodate the press. Some people might try to justify the existence of the caste system by saying it is due to the lack of capacity. But many in the press know that there are additional empty screening rooms in the Palais when people with lower color badges lined up in the hot sun for hours waiting to see a film. Your decision to add screenings merely confirm what we've known. But since you are going to add more screenings, wouldn't it only make sense if you also abolish the caste system that causes frustration and additional work hours among the press?

As festivalgoers all year round, we came up with some practical suggestions which other film festivals have adopted, including but not limited to:

• advanced notices for packed screenings, so that people won't see hundreds of reporters lining outside the Palais with zero chance to go in
• arrange additional screenings in under-utilized rooms
• fill empty reserved seats prior to the screening start time in Lumière Theater
• a mobile app with screening information for critics and reporters to pre-schedule the day, reserve seats and get notices for additional seats.

All these can be done to improve the press members' working conditions in the festival, without segregating them into different color groups and forcing them to wait for hours for a screening. It is an embarrassment for a world-renowned film festival to run a caste system. We and more and more critics, reporters, filmmakers, cinephiles and supporters of equal rights are urging you to abolish the caste system.

Sincerely,

Rubing Liang & Zishun Ning

www.thecolorofcannes.com

Twitter: @ColorOfCannes

*https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-artistic-director-battling-netflix-banning-selfies-gender-equality-croisette-1102203