Woody Allen opens Cannes, but spotlight returns to allegations he sexually abused his daughter

The 69th Cannes Film Festival opened Wednesday with stormy skies, heightened security, the premiere of a new Woody Allen film and resurrected sex abuse allegations against the 80-year-old director regarding his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow.

Allen brought his 1930s Hollywood romance Cafe Society, along with stars Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg, to Cannes to kick off the French Riviera festival. But just minutes before their press conference, a column by Allen’s son Ronan Farrow was posted online by The Hollywood Reporter in which he reiterated the sexual abuse allegations against his father. Farrow questioned Cannes’ continued embrace of Allen and chastised the press, who he said don’t ask “the tough questions.”

“That kind of silence isn’t just wrong. It’s dangerous,” wrote Farrow. “It sends a message to victims that it’s not worth the anguish of coming forward. It sends a message about who we are as a society, what we’ll overlook, who we’ll ignore, who matters and who doesn’t.”

No reporters asked Allen about Farrow’s column or the decades-old sex abuse allegations at the press conference and Allen’s publicist didn’t return an email requesting comment Wednesday. Allen has previously denied that he molested Dylan, allegations first leveled in 1992 when she was seven and Allen and Mia Farrow were in the midst of a bitter divorce.

The high-profile placement of Allen’s latest comedy as the Cannes opener was perhaps too glaring a spotlight not to escape controversy. Allen, a Cannes regular, came to the festival with 2015’s Irrational Man, although that film played in a less prestigious slot out of competition.

At the black-tie opening ceremony Wednesday, French comic Laurent Lafitte drew groans for a joke directed at Allen.

“You’ve shot so many of your films here in Europe and yet in the US you haven’t even been convicted of rape,” said Lafitte, referencing filmmaker Roman Polanski, who fled the US after pleading guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles.