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Is “Red Pill” director Cassie Jaye’s Cannes award a fake? Signs point to “yes.”

Seems legit
Seems legit

If you look at Cassie Jaye’s official bios, you might be forgiven for thinking that the director of the upcoming Red Pill documentary had won an impressive “best documentary” prize at Cannes for her first feature-length film.

On her LinkedIn page, Jaye writes that “Daddy I Do,” her film on the abstinence-only movement, “won the Best Documentary Award at the 2010 Cannes Independent Film Festival.” She makes similar statements on YouTube and on her official site, CassieJaye.com.

Press coverage of the young filmmaker has made much of her Cannes award. In a feature on Jaye, the San Rafael Patch reported breathlessly that “Daddy I Do soon garnered immense acclaim, culminating with the Best Documentary Award at the Cannes International Film Festival.” Feminist website Bust declared that the film “has already won Best Documentary awards in several festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival.” A writer at Rumpus.net started off her interview with Jaye by congratulating her for winning “Best Documentary at Cannes.”

But if you go to the official site of the Cannes Film Festival, and look at its list of winners for 2010, you will find no mention of Daddy I Do.

Hell, you won’t find a Best Documentary winner for that year at all, because Cannes didn’t actually have a Best Documentary award.

So what’s going on? Is Jaye lying? Well, not technically.

She did win an award with the word “Cannes” in it. But it didn’t come from the official Cannes festival.

It came instead from a knockoff event, the Cannes INDEPENDENT Film Festival, that many in the film business consider an outright scam, using the Cannes name in order to profit from entry fees, much as the makers of the Spader-Man action figures above hoped to make money from confused or perhaps overly thrifty fans of the real Spiderman.

A site called CannesGuide warns filmmakers not to submit films to the faux festival, declaring that

the Cannes Independent Film Festival (CIFF) is, in our opinion, a scam. It is not connected to the Festival de Cannes, Marche du Film, or any other official festival organisation. It is a coat-tails event, run from the UK, which likely seeks to capitalise on the prestige associated with the city’s name and famous festival.

Although CIFF is a real event, we have questioned its legitimacy in the past and continue to believe that there is little or no value to filmmakers in submitting a film. 

Since that was written, the “festival” seems to have vanished entirely from the world. Take a look at what its official web site looks like now. (Seriously, take a look.)

Jaye’s supporters will presumably point out that she’s never technically lied about her award or claimed that it came from the official Cannes festival. Certainly it’s not her fault that reporters make mistakes!

Except that it kind of is. Here’s a screenshot from the trailer for Daddy I Do.

Screenshot of the Daddy, I Do trailer
Screenshot of the Daddy, I Do trailer

Most people seeing this flash by on the screen, I suspect, will remember the giant CANNES and won’t even notice the word “independent” underneath it. Or, like the reporter for the San Rafael Patch, they’ll change the “independent” to “international” in their minds.

At the very least’s it’s a graphic seemingly designed to capitalize on the confusion between the Cannes Independent Film Festival and the real Festival de Cannes.

No, Jaye isn’t doing anything illegal here. But trumpeting an award from a phony festival as if it were a real award is not only dishonest; it’s kind of pathetic.

 

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Miss Andry
9 years ago

Psh. Next thing you’ll tell me is that her Oscar isn’t real.
http://data.techtimes.com/data/images/full/51552/lego-oscar-jpg.jpg

Eschen
Eschen
9 years ago

@Felix

>Is the festival in Cannes?

Not according to the cannesguide.com write up. They claim it’s based out of the UK instead and just uses the name Cannes without any presence in the city.

weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

She wasn’t “attacked”, and this has nothing to do with “her opinion”. Her award is being called a scam award, because it is. What’s your problem?

Felix is a concern troll who only comments here to be a tedious pain in the ass. That’s his problem.

I think it’s highly unlikely that she “fell for a scam”. If you’re a film maker and you actually won an award from the actual Cannes Film Festival.. you would know. You wouldn’t go “Well, I guess this is a real award. I’m not gonna google it or ask any questions though.”

Yeah, I’m not involved in the film industry in any way and I still know that the real Cannes takes place in France, not the UK. Without commenting on the quality of any of her work, because I haven’t seen it, it’s hard to believe she has no idea she didn’t really win a real Cannes award and it’s shady as hell to let believe you have. Lies by omission are still lies and I really don’t see how it isn’t fair to point that out.

Judas Peckerwood
Judas Peckerwood
9 years ago

@Miss Andry — Pfffft, and obvious fake. This is what a REAL Oscar looks like: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/130704042206-sesame-street-muppet-oscar-grouch-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg

dhag85
9 years ago

Just to be clear, Cassie Jaye does in fact seem to always accurately refer to the fake award as “Cannes Independent Film Festival”, so David is right – she is not lying. She did win this fake award. I do think it’s a bit dishonest to put a fake award as her biggest achievement on her website, but I suppose she can do whatever she wants as far as that goes.

AVfM and Paulie, on the other hand, don’t bother with the distinction between the actual Cannes Film Festival and this fake award. Paulie wrote it like this:

I also know for a fact that she has suffered for her convictions. If she hadn’t, no fundraiser would have been needed for her, a feminist Cannes winner for Best Documentary.

Getting the name of the award wrong. And implying that it’s a huge accomplishment, as opposed to a scam.

They either don’t understand that Jaye didn’t win an actual Cannes award, or they’re being dishonest. Either way is pretty bad.

Kirirudien
Kirirudien
9 years ago

Do awards even matter for documentaries? “Does your equipment suck? No? Good. Did you talk to people? Yes? Good. Were the people you talked to relevant to the issue you’re covering? Yeah? Sweet. Was the area you filmed relevant to your topic? No? Tsk, tsk, tsk. -5 points. Best documentary goes to ‘Circus O’Meow’ and its stunning coverage of the circus made by cats, for cats.”
Still not sure how that one won, given that the interviews were nothing but meowing.

David
David
9 years ago

I agree with others that it is unwise to post this prior to the release of the film. It would behoove you to take the article down, then repost it after the film is released and integrate it with an exposé of how biased the documentary is (assuming it is (which seems a reasonable assumption based on its source funding and subject material)).

dhag85
9 years ago

@David

Why? Does the outcome of the film in any way change the fact that this award is a scam?

Selt
Selt
9 years ago

Gonna have to agree with Felix here.

Going after Jaye’s history when she isn’t even a member of the manosphere has the smack of hurt feelings and is fairly clearly a preemptive attack on David’s part.

weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

Going after Jaye’s history when she isn’t even a member of the manosphere

She may not be part of the manosphere, but the manosphere is claiming she’s a Cannes award winner as part of their victory lap. So it is relevant.

When you sleep with the dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Felix Ray
9 years ago

I had some prob;lems with my browser, so I’m a little behind here

>> She wasn’t “attacked”, and this has nothing to do with “her opinion”. Her award is being called a scam award, because it is. What’s your problem?

If I type it again in all-caps, will that be clearer? Look, I don’t think this is right, and I don’t think it’s smart, and by pretending that you don’t know what’s happening, you’re not reassuring me.

I’m not going to respond to information that wasn’t in the article. It looks to me like David and I should have BOTH done some more research.

>>Felix is a concern troll who only comments here to be a tedious pain in the ass. That’s his problem.

And there it is. I know how some people here take it when somebody interrupts the circle jerk. Somebody’s probably combing over my twitter and youtube accounts right now. I’d like to stay for the ugly spectacle but… no, that’s a lie. I prefer to skip the ugly spectacle.

dhag85
9 years ago

“Going after” her..

Nobody’s doxxing her. Nobody’s harassing her. Nobody’s throwing around slurs. Her fake award is being called fake. That’s the only thing that’s happening here.

dhag85
9 years ago

Fuck off, Felipe.

leupagus
9 years ago

@Felix Ray

Combing over your social media for… what, exactly? Because people disagree with you, you assume they’re going to stalk your accounts? That’s an odd conclusion to jump to.

As for the subject of this debate – it definitely speaks to her credibility as a documentary filmmaker, but then again documentaries are not exactly money-makers; she may be using whatever prestige she can wrangle in order to help her career. I’m not sure if it’s something I’d be comfortable with if I’d hired her to film a documentary on my pet project.

skiriki
9 years ago

The last time the site has hold anything other than Japanese spam seems to be around this time: https://web.archive.org/web/20130907000558/http://www.cannesfest.org//

But the first recorded instance of the site is kind of interesting too. https://web.archive.org/web/20090826171514/http://www.cannesfest.org/

Nunya (@ottodidenari)
9 years ago

That’s a totally real award

because we haven’t seen the documentary yet, and don’t want to judge any of her real or fake awards yet…

you guise…

Leda Atomica
Leda Atomica
9 years ago

Ok whoever is doxing Felix, will you stop it at once!! Oh wait, nobody’s doing that.

Methinks someone has indeed been jerking in certain circles for too long if a blog post reads as an attack and people who disagree with you are most likely going to doxx you.

There is a world outside of the angry men’s interwebz. Thank God.

dhag85
9 years ago

@skiriki

Wow! If this thing was indeed never affiliated with the actual Cannes Film Festival, then that page is scammier than scammy.

Leda Atomica
Leda Atomica
9 years ago

Also, awards matter for documentary films. There’s an art to filmmaking outside of the sort of sh… stuff people flock to see for a few laughs and overprised popcorn.

Some sort of username
Some sort of username
9 years ago

@Felix Ray

Wow you need to calm down, you’re obviously not from around here if you think that WE’RE the ones that harass people on social media. Your YouTube and Twitter accounts are irrelevant to us, you’re the one that came in here with false accusations and now you’re salty that most people don’t agree with you.

11twiggins
9 years ago

It’s a little bit sad that she feels the need to do that. It isn’t lying, but it’s dishonest.
It is either lying by omission, or a white lie, it’s a bit borderline. IMO this does contribute to a growing pattern of unethical behaviour. First she breaks the rules she set out in her own funding programme (promising to not accept money from an invested party) for her film, now it turns out that she contributed her work to a phony film award in order to get kudos she doesn’t deserve. My impression thus far is that she’s a hack; however I will be happy to revise my opinion if her film delivers on what it has promised.

Leda Atomica
Leda Atomica
9 years ago

I realise this may not be interesting to anyone who isn’t into this sort of thing, but as a film buff I must share why some documentaries are superior and what sort of merits critics (I know I know) look for. Watching some on this list or at least reading about one might open it up a bit.

Film buff out.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound-magazine/greatest-docs

11twiggins
9 years ago

In response to the feeling that David is harassing her… she has clearly pissed him off, I won’t deny that. He is clearly annoyed, however with good reason. She has gone back on her word by accepting money from a party with a vested interest, and so obviously she is going to become an object of scrutiny. She is now a subject of interest within the manosphere as a result of her own dishonest actions, and as a result I don’t think that it’s unfair to look into the claims being made around her work by Elam et al.

gosuamakenatek
gosuamakenatek
9 years ago

This reminds me of that episode of Nathan For You where he needed to make this crappy film he threw together seem legit, so he created a fake film festival where the only other entree was a video of a guy farting for 90 seconds.