As an amputee, I can't believe that I was stopped for wearing flats at Cannes

I had to explain four times that heels aren't even an option for me

An attendee wears heels on the red carpet at Cannes to the press conference for Saul Fia (Getty Images)

Last weekend I was denied access to the Cannes Film Festival’s evening gala premiere of Gus van Sant’s film Sea of Trees. Having been warned I might not get in with “those shoes”, I was prepared to be stopped and have to explain why I was not wearing high heels.

I did not expect to wait on four separate occasions before getting a final OK to step onto the red carpet and enter the Palais de Festival.

Four times of Show and Tell. Four times of explaining that with a missing toe and a partly amputated foot, heels are not an option. Then again, I shouldn’t have needed a reason; I shouldn't have needed to explain at all.

So what is this Cannes Film Festival story on dress codes really about? As actor Emily Blunt has said – it's disappointing that this even needs to be discussed in 2015. Heels are like any other limiting form of attire and should not be required anywhere, not for stewardesses, not in any other workplace – and the festival is a workplace for most of its guests.

To begin with, it's not written anywhere that women have to wear heels. However, everyone knows that you can’t wear any old shoe and that you do you risk being denied access. The festival has decreed at different times “heels required” and “heels not required”, and also that staff have been “reminded” that heel size does not matter. But as the reports surrounding the screening of Carol show, the rules are still unclear.

So how does a woman get safely onto the red carpet?

Long dresses, short dresses, trousers – the changing restrictions of female formal dress leave a large amount of uncertainty as to what goes in any year. Add shoes to the combination of personal interpretations of formal, and it can get you sent away with an unused gala ticket. What a waste, when the purpose of the whole event is seeing and talking about films!

Wouldn't it be classier to offer clear signals on what is or isn’t allowed, and to allow for a certain freedom of interpretation? In the spirit of art, culture and equality?

By chance, I have become a voice speaking up for many of my film industry colleagues who have been stopped, inspected, denied access or sent back to change. Unless you have a visible reason for wearing flats, as I do, you may well end up losing the argument and have to wave goodbye to the gala screening.

Sexist. Silly. Stupid. Out-dated. The experience of the red carpet is walking maybe 200m in a tight crowd and then up the stairs, being ushered along and told not to stop and take selfies, so the carpet is empty again as fast as possible before the stars arrive. So it seems silly that one hour of queuing, relatively out of sight, and a maximum of three minutes of walking on a red carpet are worth all this attention on footwear. Who looks down? The cameras don’t, the crowd can’t, and the rest of us look around – with most trying to steal a selfie anyway. Who could seriously care less about what we wear on our feet?

Film and fashion walk alongside each other at the Cannes Film Festival and fashions change, so the authorities should come forward and simply state the logical and right answer: thanks for supporting our festival and the films – wear flats, wear heels, wear what you like! Just come and join the celebration!

I love Cannes because it is a crazy, wonderful, exhausting festival that attracts a broad crowd of people from all around the world. But the festival's policies should reflect this, and be more in tune with their audience.

Valeria Richter is a film producer based in Copenhagen