Cannes Lions stands with Ukraine ~ bans Russian delegates and entries from 2022 awards
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine Cannes Lions will not accept submissions or delegations from Russian organisations into Cannes Lions or its associated awards programmes in 2022.
The announcement from Cannes Lions overnight:
We stand together with our friends in Ukraine, and our many partners and community members in Russia who strongly oppose the actions of the Russian Government.
Despite our desire to celebrate creativity from wherever it comes, we have made the decision not to accept submissions or delegations from Russian organisations into Cannes Lions or its associated awards programmes.
As an immediate action, Ascential and LIONS will make a significant donation to humanitarian charities working in the affected region.
In addition, while we recognise that this is only a small gesture, we will welcome free of charge any and all Ukraine creatives who are able to attend Cannes Lions. Refunds on awards submissions for Ukraine agencies will also be honoured.
A talent directory for affected members of the creative community has been established on the LIONS platform, we encourage the global community to commission and support our friends during these troubled times. Affected members of our community can create a profile here.
Our thoughts go out to the people of Ukraine and other affected members of the community at this extremely difficult time.
Last year Russia contributed 401 entries into Cannes Lions.
8 Comments
All the symbolism is great, but banning Russian award show delegates doesn’t help the Ukrainian people right now.
They need help and that requires money.
So, the next time someone talks about yet another grand gesture ask ’em to put their money where their mouth is.
Where are they going to spend it. It’s for the west to actually take action and not just stand by and watch this atrocity. That’s what they need.
Ukraine does need m money – for food, medicine – the list is endless.
Whether the West takes action or not is a separate issue
This will make Putin re-evaluate every thing he’s doing. Bravo!
There goes my Uranium Lion.
Please Cannes. Two things you can do.
1. Donate every $$ above a $15% profit to helping the displaced people of Ukraine.
2. Only allow Ukrainian judges to judge the work of agencies entering work purporting to benefit Ukraine. And any scam work in this space, ban the creatives and agencies for life.
Saying no to something like $300k usd of entries quite literally is putting your money where your mouth is.
This almost on par with that cat show banning Russian breeds. This is nothing but xenophobic hysteria and serves no purpose whatsoever.