Latest news with #GiletsJaunes
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Case 137' Director Dominik Moll on Exploring the Gilets Jaunes Riots in His Cannes-Premiering Political Drama: ‘These Divisions Still Exist' in French Society
Dominik Moll, the Cesar-winning French director whose film 'Case 137' world premiered in competition at Cannes on Thursday evening, talked about the timeliness of his movie which tackles police misconduct through the prism of a meticulous investigation. 'Case 137' is set during France's yellow vests protests and centers on a young man who gets injured by by a flash-ball projectile. Léa Drucker, who is also at Cannes with Laura Wandel's 'Adam's Sake,' stars in 'Case 137' as an investigator in the French IGPN (internal affairs) department who is assigned the task of determining who is responsible for the incident. More from Variety São Paulo's Film Cash Rebate Delivers Early Wins, Sets Stage for 2025 Edition Brazil's Trailblazing Film-TV Org Spcine Turns 10 'Left-Handed Girl' Review: Sean Baker Collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou's Solo Debut Pulses Like Taipei After Dark Moll started working on the project years ago, during the violent Gilets Jaunes protests that rocked the country in 2018 and 2019 as a vehicle to probe divides in French society. Yet, the film wasn't meant to be a bombshell political thriller as was Ladj Ly's 'Les Miserables' or Romain Gavras' 'Athena,' to name a couple French movies looking at police brutality. 'I don't like the idea of a film 'coup de poing,'' said Moll. 'What I like to do is try to explain how an institution works.' Speaking of the backdrop of the Gilets Jaunes riots, Moll said: 'It was a period that eroded political power and led to reactions and overreactions in terms of the deployment of law enforcement. It's a movement that really exposed the divisions that exist in French society, particularly between the big cities and Paris, and small towns or rural areas where many people feel invisible and ignored, or where public services are declining. It was quite symptomatic of that.' 'Now, it feels like it's very far away, but these divisions still exist, and it seemed like a good way to talk about them, especially since the Gilets Jaunes movement is now really part of French history. I think it's important to tackle issues like this,' Moll continued. The film marks Moll's follow up to 'The Night of the 12th' which charted a police investigation surrounding the gruesome murder of a young woman. The film struck a chord in France and won an impressive six prizes at the Cesar Awards, including best film, director and adapted screenplay for Moll and Gilles Marchand, as well as promising actor for Bastien Bouillon. Drawing a parallel between the two movies, Moll said 'The Night of the 12th' 'really made me want to continue my interest in police institutions and how they work.' 'The advantage of police investigations is that you can work on cases from the field, with all the tension and suspense, etc. and you can also slip in other themes,' said Moll. 'In 'The Night of the 12th, it was violence against women. Here, it's more about police violence during law enforcement operations, but through a police investigation conducted by the IGPN, the police watchdog. That's what interested me. I felt there was material for fiction in seeing police officers investigating other police officers.' Caroline Benjo, who produced both 'Case 137' and 'The Nights of the 12th,' with Carole Scotta at Haut et Court, said both movies are 'clearly restorative.' ''The Night of the 12th' was 'a very harsh film, even a little grim and very graphic, and yet it felt cathartic,' Benjo said. 'I feel that with Dominique, the way he invests in spaces (…) which are the grey areas. It's these grey areas, those of nuance and complexity, that we have completely abandoned, when in reality they are the ones we absolutely must reconnect with,' said the producer. 'Case 137' has been critically lauded, with Variety's review describing it as a 'starkly effective' and 'riveting police procedural,' and praising Drucker's 'superb' performance as a 'dogged inspector investigating an egregious case of riot police misconduct.' Before its premiere, 'Case 137' sparked some headlines after news broke that one of its supporting actors, Theo Navarro-Mussy, had been banned by the Cannes Film Festival organizers from walking the red carpet amid accusations of rape and sexual assault. 'Case 137' is represented internationally by of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
The Guardian
17-04-2025
- The Guardian
‘They act with total impunity': Paris city hall declares war on graffiti vandals
In Paris's central Place de la République, the magnificent lions at the feet of the statue of Marianne are once again covered in graffiti. Along the nearby Boulevard Saint-Martin – part of the Grands Boulevards that bisect the north of the city – the trunk of every plane tree has been crudely sprayed with a name. The front of majestic stone apartment buildings, some dating back more than 200 years, are similarly 'tagged' with stylised initials or names. So are the benches, flower boxes, front doors, post boxes and the plinth under the bust of the half British 19th-century playwright Baron Taylor. In fact, anything that does not move has been tagged. Now Paris city hall has declared war on the vandals and promised to track them down, prosecute and seek fines for some of the estimated €6m (£5.1m) of damage they cause every year. The latest anti-tag campaign is being waged by Ariel Weil, the mayor of France's central district covering the first to fourth arrondissements on the right bank of the Seine. Weil is particularly infuriated by the repeated vandalism to the Marianne, the female symbol of the nation and a listed historic monument. 'I've asked police to use cameras and I will take legal action each time and work out the cost to the city in each case,' Weil told Le Parisien. 'Everyone needs to work together: city hall, the police and the courts. People have to know that damaging a public building is not nothing.' François Louis, the president of an association of Parisiens who use city hall's official DansMaRue app to signal damage, dumping and antisocial behaviour in public spaces, says he has heard it all before. He said a core group of about 50 'serial taggers' were responsible for half the of tags across the city and had been operating with impunity for decades. 'Some of these serial taggers are arrested, released and are back tagging again the next day. Some take pictures or film themselves and post on social media. They act with total impunity,' Louis said. 'We need to catch those who do it time and time again. It shouldn't be beyond the capability of the national police to investigate, in fact it's disconcertingly easy. They should be taking images from CCTV, matching it to phone mast records and tracing these serial taggers.' He added: 'Can you image if Notre Dame was tagged? When the Gilets Jaunes tagged the Arc de Triomphe it was headline news so why are we letting these people vandalise the historic monument at Place de la République? Paris police prefecture says the number of tagging cases it has handled increased by 51% in the last two years from 317 to 479. Those taken to court and convicted can face up to two years in prison and fines of up to €30,000 for the most serious damage. Despite repeated threats of clampdowns, there has been only one prosecution in three years. In 2022, a Paris court sentenced a man known as Six Sax to two months in prison and gave him a €17,000 fine. City hall says the cost of repairing the damage falls not only to the public authorities but also to private property owners if the graffiti on a building is above the first floor. Officials also worry that the chemicals used are causing permanent damage to the stone of monuments and buildings and the trees. Emmanuel Grégoire, a former deputy mayor of Paris who hopes to be elected as city mayor next year, said the authority had been compiling files on the worst serial taggers with a view to producing evidence for any eventual court cases. 'These investigators take photographs and look at social networks and AI to identify the signatures,' he said. 'Many of the taggers are not anonymous but operate under their own names with a sense of impunity.' Sitting in a cafe just off Place de la République, Grégoire pointed to tags all along the facade of a building opposite. 'They've gone along from balcony to balcony tagging the wall. It's a real problem all over Paris but this is one of the worst hit areas.' Louis said the ubiquitous tags are a stain on the city's magnificent Hausmannian avenues of the Grands Boulevards. 'They're like dogs pissing against a wall to mark their territory,' he said. 'It gives a very poor impression. People who have a certain image of the city in their mind arrive here and see whole districts trashed by tagging.'
