Anti-Bolloré column: Javier Bardem, Ken Loach, Mark Ruffalo and Yorgos Lanthimos among the new signatories

The Zapper Bolloré collective announced Thursday that the Spanish actor Javier Bardem, the British director Ken Loach and the American actor Mark Ruffalo have joined the signatories of the forum worrying about Vincent Bolloré’s control over cinema.

The collective affirms that 3,460 professionals in the sector – with very disparate profiles – have now signed this forum, compared to 600 before the declaration on Sunday by the president of Canal + Maxime Saada. He said he no longer wanted to work with the signatories of this text denouncing “the influence of the extreme right” on cinema via Canal +, of which Vincent Bolloré is the major shareholder.

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Stirring in the world of cinema

None of the new signatories put forward by Zapper Bolloré is French. Among them are the Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who has spoken out on several occasions against the war in Gaza, or the American Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk and sharply criticizes Donald Trump. But also figures of production like the British Ken Loach, the Finnish Aki Kaurismäki, who presented his Dead leaves in Cannes in 2023, the Greek Yorgos Lanthimos (Bugonia, Poor creatures) or the Brazilian Walter Salles.

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The release of Maxime Saada in the middle of the Cannes festival created a certain stir in the world of cinema. Thursday, actor Alain Chabat, figure of the Canal spirit, deplored to AFP the “two-ball pressure shot” of the group boss. “There were lots of ways to react to this thing”estimated the actor on the poster of Vertigo by Quentin Dupieux, presented out of competition at Cannes. On the contrary, his former acolyte of Les Nuls Dominique Farrugia addressed “all his support” to the encrypted channel and its boss.