Binoche Brushes Off Chalamet's Ballet Remarks at Greek Fest
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- Juliette Binoche dismissed Timothée Chalamet's comments comparing movie theaters to ballet and opera, telling a Q&A audience in Thessaloniki: "It doesn't matter what he's saying. Don't make it big."
- Binoche quipped "I thought cinema was a dying art" when asked about Chalamet's remarks, which drew criticism from London's Royal Ballet and Opera, "The View" hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin, and dancer Misty Copeland.
- Binoche is at the festival presenting her directorial debut "In-I In Motion," a documentary account of her 2008 stage collaboration with British dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, assembled entirely from rehearsal footage and live recording.
- "In-I In Motion" uses footage shot by Binoche's sister Marion Stalens, premiered at San Sebastian last year, and next screens at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, per Variety's Guy Lodge's review.
- Binoche credited the late Robert Redford — who died last September — with encouraging her nearly two decades ago to turn the 2008 Khan performance into a film, saying she heard his voice telling her "You've got to make a film out of this show."
- Binoche paid tribute to documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, who died last month, calling documentary filmmakers unheralded "warriors" who "risk their lives, sometimes, in order to have the actual reality of what is going on."
Why it matters: The exchange puts a revered French actor on the record pushing back against Chalamet's framing of cinema as endangered, even as Binoche uses the festival platform to champion her own nearly 20-year passion project about dance — a topic Chalamet had singled out as obsolete. Her dismissal sidesteps the controversy while underscoring her belief that art's value lies in nourishing the soul, not in commercial survival.
