Cannes: A local filmmaker says he was initially turned away from the red carpet for wearing moccasins

Earlier this week, security personnel turned Indigenous Canadian filmmaker Kelvin Redvers away at a red carpet screening in Cannes.

Redvers, who is a member of the Dene Nation, wore traditional moccasins to the event with only a black tie.

“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,” the filmmaker said in an interview with diversity after the incident. “I was pretty excited to wear these.”

After receiving a formal complaint from Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office, Cannes officials met with Redvers and invited him to attend the David Cronenberg red carpet crimes of the future in the previously forbidden moccasins.

“That was my favorite moment of my festival,” Redvers said diversity. “To step in and be kicked out for a case of cultural attrition and the next day to have changed the way I was understood and other people on the red carpet.”

However, Redvers said the initial experience of being confronted with what he calls “rather aggressive” security personnel was belittled. “I was treated like a criminal just for trying to wear my formal traditional dress,” he said of the incident at the prestigious French film festival.

This isn’t the film festival’s first controversy surrounding shoes. Kristen Stewart took off her Christian Louboutins on the red carpet in 2018 to protest the unspoken rule that women wear heels. Stewart entered the screening barefoot.