Alleged bomb scare briefly delays Cannes film screening

The General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festival Thierry Fremaux walks back to the Festival Palace on May 20, 2017, after the screening of the film ‘120 Beats Per Minute (120 Battements Par Minute)’ at the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. AFP

CANNES, France — A bomb scare has caused the Cannes Film Festival to briefly evacuate the Debussy theater before the first screening of director Michel Hazanavicius’ movie “Redoubtable,” a film in competition for the Palme d’Or prize.

Those attending the screening Saturday night were ushered away from the theater in the French Riviera city. Journalists were later told that the suspicious item was found to be not dangerous. After a delay of about 30 minutes, the theater was opened.

The scare prompted several “bomb scare” jokes from critics who didn’t care for Hazanavicius’ last Cannes entry, the badly reviewed “The Search.”

France has been under a state of emergency since 2015, when extremist attacks in Paris left 130 people dead in one night in November. CBB