how Iris Knobloch became the Festival’s first president

Valois Street. Spring sunshine at the end of April. Minister’s office. In a beautiful purple suit, Roselyne Bachelot, warm although she herself is waiting to find out what sauce she is going to be eaten, talks about the appointment of the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, who will take over from Pierre Lescure on 1is July : “I didn’t first ask myself the question of the person but of the profile. A robot portrait, in a way. »

With her hands, Roselyne Bachelot makes the sign of a funnel : “It was getting tighter, like the baby mouse going towards the piece of cheese… Faced with the challenges facing the Festival – the health crisis, the question of platforms, the #metoo debates and the challenges of sustainable development – and to the great dissatisfaction of a board of directors that sees itself as a simple recording room, someone was needed who was comfortable in the international context, who spoke perfect English, therefore, who had the habit of governance. » Smile of the Minister: thus came the name of Iris Knobloch.

Iris who? This 59-year-old lawyer may have headed the French, then European, branch of the Warner studios for seventeen years – and sit on the board of directors of Accor or the Lazard bank – but her name remains unknown to the public. And this appointment, made at a run, will have surprised everyone – even the person concerned.

It all started two years earlier, in 2020. Pierre Lescure is completing his second three-year term in this voluntary but prestigious position. Acrobat and libertarian, the former boss of Canal + likes to be desired. The Elysée then believes he understands that he wants to leave – which suits him, the president could thus mark the festival with his mark by appointing a woman there. And perhaps even with an atypical profile, coming from the business world, since Cannes is also a film market that needs to be supported in these difficult times.

A name has come out of the hat: Mercedes Erra. Advertiser, the founder and boss of the BETC agency knew Pierre Lescure well when he ran Canal+, for which she orchestrated the first campaigns. The name would have been launched by the president himself: when he was Minister of the Economy, Emmanuel Macron had asked her to create a “communication sector” to federate and defend these professions. Today president of the board of directors of the National Museum of the History of Immigration, in Paris, sitting on the board of directors of Accor (like Iris Knobloch), she has the required qualities, even if, on her own Admittedly, she sucks at public relations and can’t recognize an artist.

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