A few hours before the presentation of the first TikTok awards at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Rithy Panh returned to his duties as president of the jury, from which he had just resigned in the face of “pressure” from the social network, TikTok confirmed to AFP on Friday 20 may.
“TikTok has backtracked and is giving us back our sovereignty,” the Franco-Cambodian director told AFP on Friday morning, after announcing it on Twitter. “The jury will be able to give the prize to the films it has chosen,” he said.
Friday 20 May, in the afternoon, the
Thursday, May 19, the filmmaker, known for his films and documentaries on his native country, Cambodia, criticized the Chinese social network for not giving him enough “freedom” and for exerting too much “pressure” on the jury.
The director, whose feature film The People of the Rice Field was the first Cambodian film presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, felt that the platform’s suggestions were too “insistent”. He had also specified to the Obs that the representatives of the Chinese social network “would have been very insistent to know the progress of the work of the jury, to the point of “suggesting” to him who to take precedence among the thirty short formats selected “. The filmmaker had however affirmed his support for the creators of the mini-films, judging that “some are really of good quality”.
For the first collaboration between the favorite social network of young people and the prestigious international festival, the jury had to decide between very short videos by filmmakers from all over the world.
In addition to Rithy Panh, the jury is made up of three other filmmakers (Camille Ducellier, Basma Khalifa and Angèle Diabang) and a TikTok star (Khaby Lame).
