Cannes Daily: 'Slaves to the Streamers' No More
Calls for death of the 'bloated indie' and rebellion prevail: 'We have to innovate . . . [or] we're dead.' Plus: A new leader on the Screen Jury Grid
There may be handwringing over Furiosa and Megalopolis and whether they’re any good, but near everyone I speak with in Cannes — at the rooftop parties, in the street, in the see-and-be-seen hotel lobbies or even over the phone — says the same thing: This is the year that excitement about movies has returned.
Yes, budgets are down (sometimes drastically), people aren’t buying as many movie tickets but there’s a desire and determination to get away from the churn of the content factories. Perhaps the lack of work and a higher bar for getting greenlit is making for better quality?
At the Majestic's Le Terrasse Piscine bar, Eve Jackson, culture editor at TV channel France 24, gave me her take on this year’s eclectic film offerings at Cannes, which embrace everything from a Zambian funeral to a transgender cartel boss. “Even though I’ve been coming for 15 years, I’ve been surprised this year,” she tells me. “Go watch Emilia Perez, the Jacques Audiard film: Zoe Saldaña starts speaking in Spanish. It’s just brilliant.”
“The Queens of Cannes are Fit, Fabulous, And Over 50,” Vogue observed in a post, and it was hard not to notice that, from Meryl Streep’s grand kickoff accepting her lifetime achievement award to Demi Moore, who has been everywhere as her film The Substance earns raves. “This year was about female empowerment,” Jackson says. “Seventy-five percent of the films have a female protagonist, seeking revenge, fighting back, finding her place.”
There’s some optimism on the business front too. “Last year was a bit more subdued because of the strikes,” Thomas Hoegh, CEO of Garden Studios, tells me by phone from London shortly after he left Cannes. “[But] I heard this from many people: We are going to start making movies again as opposed to being slaves to the streamers.” He adds that Amazon is really coming into its own as a film partner while Netflix remains, in his words, “insular.”
“We have to innovate, otherwise we’re dead,” he says. The indie-film industry will have to be creative as there’s less money. “The bloated indie film at $12 million to $15 million is less likely,” he tells me. “They’re going to look more like $5 million to $8 million.”
As for where to make those movies — or any movies — the Irish Pavilion at Cannes was buzzing this week. Ireland is having a moment thanks to Oppenheimer actor Cillian Murphy, and Element Pictures’ Oscar winner Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
New, bigger tax relief for movies and TV shot in Ireland is helping producers get their productions underway. Mark Kenny, CEO of Great Island Productions based in Cork, Ireland says, “You can raise about 60 percent of your budget in Ireland at the moment. Finance models are changing. There’s a movement away from the studio system to private funding so producers are getting together to look for money from independent sources — hedge funds and risk capital.”
The place to be in Cannes is in the hotel lobbies. At the Hotel du Cap, Reed Phillips, managing partner of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, and his wife enjoyed the people watching. He happily shared his sighting of Salma Hayek, wife of Kering (and CAA) boss Francois-Henri Pinault, in head-to-toe Gucci. Phillips describes the scene as “lots of air kissing and Birkin bags,” with tight security in advance of the AMFAR event.
For the gawkers (like me), the highlights of this year’s Cannes include the fusion of the global film and fashion scenes. Kering brands Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Brioni seemed to dominate. “You don’t need to talk,” says France 24’s Jackson, “you can just gaze at everybody.”
Over in the lobby of the Hotel Barriere Le Majestic, I found actors and producers nervously milling, checking themselves before their teams assemble and head over to the red carpet and the screenings across the street. Blocking the exit are rail-thin models in sky-high heels and haute couture conducting fashion shoots and ad campaigns that include the built-in backdrop of paparazzi and perhaps a famous name or two.
Hoping for a soundbite, I chase the director Audiard, but miss him as he disappears into the crowds.
Despondent, I stuffed my almost dead iPhone in my bag . . . and then French cinematic royalty arrived. Catherine Deneuve, the stunning 80-year-old actress, dressed in a black Chanel pantsuit, glided to the check-in desk surrounded by men in tuxedos, unnoticed by most of those crowding around the hotel entrance.
Deneuve, icon of New Wave cinema, is a reminder that some movies so define their moment that they need not be questioned. They endure as iconic cultural products through the decades: Belle de Jour, Indochine, The Last Metro.
Deneuve was in Cannes with her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, to premiere Marcello Mio, about her late husband, Marcello Mastroianni, perhaps most famous for rescuing Silvia from the Trevi Fountains in La Dolce Vita.
“Who’s that?” a young woman asked me.
Really? Imbécile!
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Today’s Screen Jury at Cannes
The long-running Screen International Jury Grid is a critical ranking of competition films in Cannes, according to an assembled jury of 12 international film critics, including Screen's reviewers. Click here for today’s full grid and story, where Sean Baker’s Anora has now rocketed to the top of the consensus ratings.
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Zoe Saldana speaks Spanish. Ummmmmm. Who knew.