Published on May 30, 2022

Last Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Indigenous film producer Kelvin Redvers (Dene) was in line to walk the red carpet for the premiere of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Les Amandiers. Knowing the step and repeat at Cannes is always a paparazzi-filled spectacle, the Vancouver-based Redvers wanted to use the opportunity to highlight and celebrate his own Indigenous culture, by wearing a pair of traditional moccasins. “I was hoping to wear an example of something that would be formal for my culture, which was a beautiful pair of moccasins that were actually beaded by my sister,” Redvers told Variety. Before he could do so, however, Redvers was stopped by red carpet security, barred from entering, and asked to leave until he changed into “regular” dress shoes.

Redvers adds that he was made to feel like “a criminal” for wearing the moccasins, which were made of moose hide and embellished with beautiful beadwork. It’s not the first time the festival has turned away guests for not adhering to the event’s infamously-strict, but not codified formal dress code. In addition to enforcing a black tie dress code, the festival scrutinizes footwear choices. At one point, the festival turned away any woman who wore flats instead of heels. Though that rule has loosened up—after A-list stars like Julia Roberts and Kristen Stewart protested it by going barefoot on the carpet—the festival’s strict dress shoe rules evidently still apply to cultural wear. It’s an approach that seems outdated at best and discriminatory at worst. (The festival has since apologized to Redvers.)

After being turned away on the red carpet, one of Redvers’s French-speaking colleagues reportedly tried to argue with security that the Cannes dress code should have exceptions for such cultural pieces. But security didn’t budge, and they actually got quite aggressive with the producer. “A fairly aggressive security guard got fed up, got right in my face and said, ‘You need to leave now. Leave now. Leave now. Leave now. Leave!’” Redvers told Variety. “I was very confused and hurt; I felt belittled.” Redvers could only return to the red carpet once he changed his shoes, which he did.

The Cannes Film Festival deeming moccasins as not “formal” enough is ironic, given the shoes are in fact a special-occasion piece within Indigenous culture. It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly they were first designed, as numerous tribes across North America created and designed them before colonization. Today, they are widely known as a soft-soled style—often embellished with beadwork, quillwork, or embroidery—that can be worn as a house slipper. Most popularly, however, they are worn by dancers at powwow ceremonies, and paired with their traditional, head-to-toe regalia. Within the Indigenous community, moccasins are often given as gifts. They are seen as special objects, and hold sacred meaning.

The day following the premiere, high-level members of the Cannes Film Festival team—including François Desrousseaux, the festival’s secretary general and head of the red carpet—reportedly met with Redvers and apologized for the incident. Redvers and other members of the Indigenous Screen Office, who funded Redvers’s trip to the festival, reportedly had “productive and open conversation” with the Cannes team around how they should rethink what “formal” means on the carpet. Redvers wonders if things would have been different if he weren’t wearing a tuxedo with the moccasins, telling Variety, “If I’d been wearing the full regalia, they would have put me through, which is interesting because it really limits formal wear into a preconceived idea—and a Western idea—of what formal wear should be.”

Source: An Indigenous Producer Was Turned Away From the Cannes Red Carpet For Wearing Moccasins