The Cannes Film Festival is a breakthrough for the industry

In the next two weeks, Cannes will turn into a film set again. The film festival has often served as a backdrop in the past:

Brian de Palma’s thriller “Femme fatale” took place in the middle of the hustle and bustle, the US indie “Festival in Cannes” (with Anouk Aimée) was shot on location in the famous Carlton Hotel in 1999, Dave Winter shot “The Last Horror Film” guerrilla style in 1980 the Croisette – and Rowan Atkinson was allowed to do “Mr. Bean’s Vacation “even set up his cameras on the red carpet. But this July, Cannes will not only serve as a stage.

The festival presents itself with a documentary

The most important film festival will celebrate its 75th birthday next year, and Thierry Frémaux would like to celebrate the occasion with the documentary film “Cannes Uncut”. A team led by British producer Colin Burrows will be shooting at the festival over the next two weeks, the world premiere is in 2022.

Above all, however, you can look forward to the archive material: the parties on the Croisette are legendary, and the star shows have always made Cannes so special.

In this respect, you really couldn’t imagine a better year for such a film project. When the festival opens today, Tuesday, with the musical “Annette” by the French university Leos Carax (starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, the music comes from the ArtPop band The Sparks), it should feel like a liberation.

After Cannes had to be canceled last year due to the corona, the industry has been scratching its feet for weeks – regardless of the fact that the delta variant of the virus is spreading rapidly in Europe. In France, however, the cinemas have been able to be fully occupied again for a week – thanks to Emmanuel Macron, who declared the cinema a “place of everyday life” in a league with restaurants and theaters.

In view of such an appreciation qua government decree, one naturally looks enviously as a German film fan at the European neighbors. But in the past few days, given the news situation and the pictures of celebrating soccer fans at European Championship venues, a latent discomfort has prevailed again.

The Croisette is also likely to resemble a fan mile for the next two weeks: the number of accredited people is reminiscent of the good old days, the longing for a return to the cinema, proclaimed by Cannes boss Frémaux, is unbroken.

Only the partying will be a bit more difficult, Festival President Pierre Lescure has already announced that the parties will be much smaller. The Swiss jeweler Chopard, for example, which produces the golden and silver palms, only invited 300 instead of the usual 1000 guests to its traditional party on the terrace of the Hôtel Martinez.

Not only because Frémaux has declared this year’s edition to be a test run for the anniversary break in 2022 after the Corona break, it should be a memorable festival. Many of the directors who were confirmed for Cannes last year have withheld their films.

Star cast at Wes Anderson

The most prominent among them is Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch”, whose star cast – with Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Mathieu Amalric, Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Anjelica Huston etc. – alone would justify its own festival.

In a sense, Frémaux was able to pick the best out of two vintages, and the official selection in the competition, Un Certain Regard and the specially created side series Cannes Premières, in which en passant films by established names such as Andrea Arnold, Kornél Mundruczó, Hong Sangsoo, Oliver Stone and Charlotte Gainsbourg run.

The megalomania of the undertaking seems absurd, but the program also shows that Corona has not paralyzed international film production as feared. The crème de la crème of international auteur cinema is also represented in the competition: the notorious lateral head Paul Verhoeven with his nun drama “Benedetta”, again Sean Penn, the bear winners: Ildikó Enyedi, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, the Cannes Darlings Kirill Serebrennikow and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Nanni Moretti and, for the first time, the French director Mia Hansen-Løve.

How are all the films supposed to find their way into the cinema?

It is more difficult to answer the question of how all these films should find their way into the cinemas in the first place. But Thierry Frémaux is willing to turn the 74th Film Festival into a festival of cinema, with a huge boost. Any means is fine for him. As a little candy, he has secured the European premiere of the bolide blockbuster “The Fast and Furious 9”. Fast food and fine dining, Cannes tries to build culinary bridges.

The popular push – Cannes had recently lost its appeal to the big Hollywood studios a little – coincides with Frémaux’s announcement that the festival’s elitist reputation would be corrected. In the spring of an interview with the American industry magazine “Variety”, he admitted that Cannes can be intimidating.

Spike Lee chairs the jury

Anyone who has ever been exposed to the rigid entry protocol in the Festival Palais can confirm that. Corona has also taught Frémaux humility, who in recent debates – on MeToo / diversity, Netflix or sustainability in the industry – has proven to be astonishingly resistant to advice. This year Cannes has launched an initiative for a green fingerprint for the film industry.

For the first time, a Person of Color will chair the jury with director Spike Lee. Lee, who adorns the official festival poster, won the jury’s grand prize three years ago with “BlacKkKlansman”. With the directors Mati Diop and Jessica Hausner, the actresses Maggie Gyllenhaal and Mélanie Laurent, the Brazilian Kleber Mendonça and the French Tahar Rahim, the jury is more diverse and expert than it has been for a long time.

Only one director won the palm

That gives hope, because Frémaux has not yet been able to solve one problem: Cannes has been waiting for the second Golden Palm for a director since 1993. At the time, it went to Jane Campion, who will likely show her new Netflix production in Venice in September. The probability is not particularly high this year either, only four of the 24 films in the competition were made under female directors.

But that is also part of the beautiful Cannes tradition: There is always something to complain about. But when you sit back in the glorious Grand Théâtre Lumière, the displeasure with the arrogance of the French, who view cinema as their very own art, with the endless queues and the somewhat too routine film selection fizzles out. Cannes still wraps you around your little finger.

The cinema always looks better in Cannes

Even the erratic corona protocol (mask requirement yes, but only 48-hour tests, valid tests in the palace, but not in the cinemas, social distancing in full halls) will prove its usefulness. This is probably one of the reasons why the festival has embraced a certain arrogance over the decades:

The audience endures the little humiliations because the cinema in Cannes just looks better, always a bit larger than life. Even the little sadist Hitchcock knew this and shot his most shimmering film on the Côte-d’Azur, “Above the roofs of Nice”. So where else should cinema make its comeback?