Can there be a Cannes sans controversy? No way. If starlets dropped their tops on the Cannes beachfront and hugged hunky heroes, a legendary director told a crowded media conference soon after his movie was screened that he was a Nazi sympathiser. It was Lars Von Trier, the enfant terrible of European cinema. Half the world rose in protest and the Festival had to quickly ask him to leave the city. But the following year, the Festival said he was welcome again!

This year, Maiwenn, the French actress and director – whose film, Jeanne du Barry, is opening the Festival on May 16 – has been accused of assault by a French journalist. Edwy Plenel, editor-in-chief of Mediapart, an online investigative newspaper, has filed a complaint with the police. He said he was dining at a restaurant in a fancy Paris locality when she grabbed him by his hair and spit on his face. The incident left Plenel ‘traumatized’, reported the news outlet AFP.

Although, Mediapart has not done – at least so far – any investigative reports on Maiwenn, the paper has had many stories on her former husband, French director Luc Besson’s sexual assault allegations. One of them concerned Dutch actress Sand Van Roy, who said she was raped by him. But the case was dropped.

Interestingly, Maiwenn, who has never agreed with the #MeToo movement, cast Johnny Depp to play the lead in her Cannes opener. He was then in the middle of a legal battle with his ex-wife Amber Heard.

Maiwenn plays a poor commoner in Jeanne du Barry, who later became French King Louis XV’s lover. Depp essays the king’s part. The film also stars Benjamin Lavernhe, Melvil Poupaud, Pierre Richard, Pascal Greggory and India Hair. The trailer was released around the same time as the incident was reported. As reported by People magazine, the official synopsis of the film reads, “Jeanne Vaubernier, a young working-class woman hungry for culture and pleasure, uses her intelligence and allure to climb the rungs of the social ladder one by one.”

“She becomes the favorite of King Louis XV, who, unaware of her status as a courtesan, regains through her his appetite for life. They fall madly in love. Against all propriety and etiquette, Jeanne moves to Versailles, where her arrival scandalizes the court,” it added.

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