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Cannes Film Festival, which draws eyeballs every year with its mix of fashion and cinema, is being held from May 16 to May 27 this year. Over the years, particularly for Indians, it has become noteworthy because it results in numerous photos of Bollywood actors on the red carpet, often in unconventional outfits.
Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has appeared multiple times at the festival. Last year, actress Deepika Padukone was selected as a jury member of the festival, counted among the most prestigious film events globally. But why does the Festival generate so much interest and what actually happens as part of it?
Its history goes back to 1936, during an era where tensions were building upto World War II.
In 1938, a few months before the War was to begin in Europe, some countries assembled in Italy to attend the Venice Film Festival, which at that point was one of the very few competitive film festivals in the world, featuring the USA and a few countries from Europe. Italy and Germany were ruled by fascist parties under Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, respectively.
When it was time to give the best film award, the jury was unanimous in its choice for an American film. “But under pressure from Hitler the Nazi propaganda film Olympia by director Leni Riefenstahl and the Italian film Luciano Serra, Pilot by director Goffredo Alessandrini reaped the ultimate accolade, named the Mussolini Cup,” says its website. Riefenstahl made propaganda films for Hitler’s Nazi regime.
The UK, the USA and France quit the event in response. French representative Phillipe Erlanger would then plan establishing a French event as an alternative. Georges Bonnet, the French Foreign Minister, was concerned about this affecting Franco-Italian relations, but the Education Minister Jean Zay and Minister of the Interior Albert Sarraut supported the idea of a film festival for Europe in which art would no longer be influenced by “political manoeuvring”.
Thus, in 1939, a festival was ready to be announced, with support from countries like the US. Among the cities in contention was Cannes, a coastal city on the southern tip of France, that was chosen for its location as a resort town and after lobbying by local hoteliers and businessmen.
But tensions because of the War in Europe would push the first edition to opening in 1946, attended by stars like Kirk Douglas, Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot, Cary Grant, Gina Lollobrigida and the painter Pablo Picasso. It featured 19 countries and an international jury.
The first few editions involved a range of entertainment options, beyond films. There were parades, fireworks at the beaches and doves released in the air. Nowadays, apart from the prizes, there are film screenings over the course of the festival, concerts and other social events, such as the red carpet. Nearly all of these are invite-only events and limited to those chosen from the film industry.
This exclusivity and the “sight of stars from all four corners of the globe processing up the famous red steps and the constant swarm of media attention soon turned it into a world-famous, legendary event,” the website says.
Aishwarya Rai, for instance, first attended the Festival for the premiere of her film Devdas in 2002. Since then, she has attended as a global ambassador of beauty brand L’Oreal.
However, the aim to avoid political manoeuvring hasn’t been easy to achieve, with the festival’s beginnings accompanying the onset of the Cold War between the US and USSR. The organisers thus added an article to the Festival regulations authorising the withdrawal of a film submitted to it, under certain conditions, to avoid issues over choosing a film. This was then removed in 1957.
In 1955, a jury made up of foreign celebrities from the film industry awarded the first Palme d’or, decided as the highest prize at the festival. Iconic films such as Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Pulp Fiction and Parasite are some of its recipients. The first and only Indian film to do so was 1946’s Neecha Nagar, directed by Chetan Anand.
By the 1980s, to make the selections more diverse, countries such as the Philippines, China, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina were invited. In 2022, Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes, by Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen, won the Golden Eye, the highest honour for a documentary.
Notable screenings include director James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of the Destiny, where Harrison Ford will be seen in the iconic role of Jones for the last time, and director Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
Saudi Arabia is backing several films this year, part of the country’s push for diversifying its exports to include culture and tourism, apart from commodities like oil. French director Maiwenn’s film Jeanne du Barry, starring Johnny Depp, is among these films and is set to premiere at Cannes.
A report in The Hollywood Reporter said other Saudi-backed films like Four Daughters, by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, and Banel & Adama, the debut feature of Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, point to an attempt to promote films from Arab filmmakers. Though the Depp film does not have a direct connection to this, the stated aim, as per the director of the Saudi organisation involved, is “to defend the visionary female talents both in front of and behind the camera of the world,” according to a Le Monde report.
Former French actress Adele Haenel, in a recent critical open letter, described Cannes as one of the institutions of French cinema that was “ready to do anything to defend their rapist chiefs.” She also quit the film industry, citing other concerns on treatment of sexual harassment cases. Festival chief Thierry Fremaux rejected her claims but the Festival has faced other concerns in the past too, in light of the #MeToo movement highlighting cases of sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry.
