Reflections on Cannes: Festival Egos & Marché Ids Revel in the Calm Before the Storm

Reflections on Cannes and the pirates of the Mediterranean

This year’s Cannes Film Festival has now come and gone as a global industry grapples with who we are and recent memory of the Covid tempest dulls the sense that another altogether different storm approaches. 

One can find comedy and tragedy in equal measure along la Croissette at any time of year. Each May, however, the Festival du Film focuses its lenses on drama and adventure. The chase scenes are haut couture. The sex scenes unrated. One thing alone drives the plot. Money. Not just money. Other People’s Money. All of those men, women and corporate execs who come to Cannes with cheques to write and insider access to pay...

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9 Comments

  2. Dear Kirsty. We saw the same things in the eyes of the indie crowd in Cannes this year. I would call it fear.

    The buyers really weren’t there to buy (those who were there). I think the few deals I heard about had been agreed prior. This not a reflection on either the quality or quantity of the content being pitched. I also think the audiences are even hungrier for new stories than ever before.

    The Buyers are simply not buying. If they were once sharks (I like your analogy), they are now vultures; waiting for creatives to drop before swooping in and taking. I don’t think the industry can survive this for long. Something’s gotta give.

    • Hi – whilst I agree in part we were actually astounded to be involved in several projects that were pre sold – the values in some cases quite “high” – high being above the rock bottom bargain basement $5k’s of the post pandemic years. The buyers are few and far between but they are there but it’s like sifting for gold rather in a seam that’s been mined way too long. Things have to change but those sales have ensured two projects may get made as cash flowing them is the next big hurdle !!!

      • Kirsty, congratulations.

        Your pre-sale agreements were struck during the Festival? Or arranged before and signed at the Festival?

        It’s interesting to get so many conflicting reports about the present-state of the market and who is managing to find traction in the traditional way.

      • It was the sales agent who conducted these at the Festival – no doubt they had sent info out in advance of the Festival – we find Sales activity is year round now and is becoming more buoyant in certain genres – esp HORROR

  4. Point of fact: the Cannes Film Festival was founded in 1939 as the antithesis of the overtly fascist (i.e. rather than left-wing) Venice Film Festival , which had become dominated by Mussolini and his party.

    • You may be technically correct, Gavin. But …

      Not to “girl’splain” to you, Gavin, but history isn’t that simple. The Cannes “Festival International du Film” had a rather inconsistent beginning. While its inaugural event in 1939 may have been born from Mussolini and Hitler turning the Venice International Film Festival into a fascist love fest, particularly in 1938, World War II interfered in the creation of a consistent, annual rival to Venice.

      Kirsty Bell’s reference to 77 years ago may to the 1947 iteration after its relaunch in 1946. At that time, Venice as decidedly left-leaning (for obvious reasons). The spring-time event we all know today, complete with a fully-roofed Palais des Festivals on la Croissette, didn’t happen until 1951.

      By then, the Venice International Film Festival was decidedly “left wing”.

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