Actress Asia Argento, who is among Harvey Weinstein’s most vocal accusers, walked onstage to thunderous applause at the Cannes closing ceremony Saturday afternoon, and delivered a searing speech against Weinstein’s actions—implicating the film festival in covering up his misconduct.
“I have a few words to say,” Argento said, while Cannes jury member Ava DuVernay stood beside her. “In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes. I was 21 years old. The festival was his hunting ground.”
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Argento was one of the actresses interviewed by Ronan Farrow for his New Yorker piece, one of the articles that broke open the Weinstein scandal. She has been vocal about his alleged abuses against her and other women ever since. She moved to Germany shortly afterward, citing an atmosphere of “victim blaming” in her home country of Italy. (Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 80 people. Weinstein and his attorneys have denied all claims of sexual assault.)
“I want to make a prediction,” Argento said during her remarks, “Harvey Weinstein will never be welcomed here ever again. He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes. Even tonight sitting among you, there are those that need to be held accountable for their conduct against women. You know who you are.
“But, most importantly,” she continued, “we know who you are, and we will not allow you to get away with it any longer.”
Some in the audience, according to those who attended the ceremony, were “visibly stunned” as Argento spoke and directly accused the Cannes Film Festival of sheltering Weinstein and people like him.
As Rebecca Keegan reported, the festival’s entrenched culture—rules requiring women to wear heels on the red carpet, yacht parties brimming with sex workers—has made for a rougher adjustment to the #MeToo era than many would like. “The entire world has changed,” festival director Thierry Frémaux said during a press conference at Cannes. “We were deeply shocked [by the Weinstein allegations]. We indeed condemned his behavior. . . . We questioned ourselves and our own practices.” French director Eva Husson, one of only three female directors competing at the festival, lamented France’s “ lukewarm” reception to the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.
“French society sees itself as extremely open and, in fact, it is an extremely conservative society,” Husson told Keegan. “We have a really hard time looking at ourselves and acknowledging there is a problem.”
