From July 1, Pierre Lescure will leave his position as president of the Cannes festival to Iris Knobloch for a 3-year term.
The board of directors of the festival met today to elect, with 18 votes for, this former president of Warner Bros France.
But before proceeding with this election, it was necessary to settle the problems of possible conflicts of interest of Iris Knobloch at the head of this institution.
Indeed, it launched with Mathieu Pigasse and Artemis, the holding company of the Pinault family, a SPAC called I2PO whose aim is to invest in entertainment and leisure companies.
Due to her position within I2PO, Iris Knobloch may have conflicts of interest because on the one hand the luxury group Kering, owned by the Pinault family, is a sponsor of the festival and
on the other hand because the SPAC is likely to invest in audiovisual and cinematographic production companies.
Before being elected, Iris Knobloch had to agree to withdraw from any decision of the Festival's board of directors concerning Kering.
In addition, it has undertaken that I2PO will not invest in areas related to its new activity.