“Justin,
Justin,” screamed scores of photographers in Cannes this week, as they tried to
get the attention of gleaming singer-actor Justin Timberlake, who was at the Cannes
Film Festival to promote the movie "Inside Llewyn Davis”.
As “Justin”
paused, he was caught on camera against the backdrop of drawings by some of the
world’s leading cartoonists.
These
drawings have been mounted by Cartooning for Peace, a non-profit association
invited to the film festival to raise awareness of their work.
 |
| French cartoonist Plantu. |
Titled
“Plantu & Friends, Drawings of Freedom”, the exhibition reflects the group’s
aims, which are to “encourage dialogue, promote freedom of expression, and
recognize the journalistic work of cartoonists”, said Alice Toulemonde,
the association’s spokesperson.
Formed in
2006 by the renowned French cartoonist Plantu and former United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan, Cartooning for Peace also seeks to “promote a better understanding
and mutual respect between people by using cartoons as a universal language”.
The group
currently comprises more than 100 cartoonists who represent 40 nationalities
and all of the world’s major religions. During the festival, the irony and
humour in the cartoons have brought smiles to participants rushing from
screening to screening.
Beyond the
flashbulbs, the organizers of the film festival said they wanted to draw
attention to threats against freedom of expression as, in the past few years,
cartoonists from Syria, Venezuela and several other countries have been in danger because of their work.
Michel
Kichka, a leading Israeli cartoonist who was born in Belgium, said that being a
member of Cartooning for Peace means knowing more about what is happening in
the world.
 |
| Kichka: cartoonists promote peace in the face of threats. |
“You have to
read more than one newspaper and in different languages to know how things are
being presented,” he said in an interview in Cannes. “Today you need to know
the effect that your work can have, and you have to take into consideration
that you can be badly misunderstood, but that doesn't mean you can’t express
yourself.”
According to
Kichka, someone somewhere “is always going to be upset”, but cartoonists should
still have freedom of expression.
“If you don’t
upset anyone, you’ve done a bad cartoon because you’ve sterilized yourself too
much,” he said.
Kichka’s
views were shared by fellow cartoonists Plantu, Willis From Tunis (Nadia
Khiari), and Dilem of Algeria, who all travelled to this southern French city for the exhibition
of cartoons during the film festival, which runs until May 26.
They also
attended a “star-studded” auction of their own and other cartoonists’ original
artwork that fetched 75,000 euros on Monday. The auction gained support from Claudia
Cardinale, Bérénice Bejo, Agnès b., James Franco, Michel Hazanavicius, Thomas
Vinterberg and other members of the film and fashion communities. “Justin” had presumably left the building by then.
 |
| A cartoon by Willis From Tunis |
