Chief news agencies boycott Cannes Festival

Posted by Alisa Zykova on April 14, 2010 at 11:53 AM

Prominent news agencies Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Associated Press and Getty TV are boycotting the Cannes Film Festival press conference, which is to be held on April 15 in Paris, the BBC reported today.

The agencies do not agree with the restrictions on video content from the red carpet events as well as news conferences during the event. According to a press release, the agencies may not even attend the festival unless some agreement is decided upon.

"If these restrictions, which we have not been informed of officially, were upheld they would be unacceptable. They would penalise many media subscribers of the agencies the world over," said AFP Global News Director Philippe Massonnet.

French broadcasting group Canal Plus and pay-TV service Orange teamed up to limit the amount of video footage allowed to be filmed by the media, divulged the AFP. In late March, agencies were told that coverage must be no longer than two minutes per day and that they were permitted to have up to 30-second segments from the red carpet or press conferences.

AFPTV chief editor Christine Buhagiar mentioned that the move was "extremely serious" since a lot of countries not having enough finances to cover Cannes wouldn't have any images from the event, the AFP stated. Thomson Reuters Global Head of News Agency Cristoph Pleitgen called the restrictions "unfair," according to ABC News.

The Cannes Film Festival lasts from May 12 to May 23.