From tariffs to trees, there was plenty to talk about at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Screen gathers together the major discussion points from this year’s event, which concludes tomorrow (May 24) with the Palme d’Or prize-giving ceremony.
Mubi’s moment
One company has dominated the Cannes Competition deals so far. Of the 21 deals for Competition films across North America and UK-Ireland, 10 have gone to Mubi. These include films on which it holds both territories, such as Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love, for which the company paid a huge $24m at the weekend; to those where it is only releasing in North America, such as Oliver Hermanus’s The History Of Sound; and those where, of the two, it is only doing UK-Ireland, such as The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value. Beyond those two markets, the company has picked up further territories on Competition films such as Alpha, where it has Latin America and India; and – just in – Sirât, for which it holds Italy, Turkey and India. The company now holds at least two territories on nine of the 22 films in Competition.
Mubi is clearly going big and early with its bids, pushing any rivals out of the water and will feel that its spring spree gives it a powerful release slate for the coming months, while other buyers may feel frustrated to be repeatedly shut out on price. With the Venice-Toronto axis still to come, how the distributor will manage its packed slate during awards season remains to be seen.
Neon is the other major player so far, holding North American rights on five of the 22 Competition films including It Was Just An Accident and Sentimental Value; while Universal had pre-bought three, including Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, in cinemas this weekend.
Eleven of the 22 films have neither a North America or UK-Ireland deal yet, with business reportedly incoming on Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Bi Gan’s Resurrection.
Market activity mixed for the UK
The market continued to respond positively to projects from UK sellers that were very clear propositions. “If you’ve got the right actors, the right director, the right pitch and you’re clear what genre it is, and it doesn’t fall between the cracks, then there is a lot of activity,” said Protagonist Pictures senior vice president of sales and distribution, Sarah Lebutsch.
Similarly Spencer Pollard, Kaleidoscope CEO, reported robust activity on its documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror. “It is firmly aimed at a particular audience and buyers and the public know, and in a lot cases, love the IP, so this was a title that attracted lots of interest,” he said. Read more here.
French industry is gearing up for Canal+ cuts…
France’s local industry is preparing for the potential consequences of a reduction in Canal+’s cinema budget from more than €600m to €480m over the next three years. The cuts will shake up France’s local production and distribution industry, particularly for more auteur-driven independent films. Producers said they are worried that their films - particularly those in the mid-budget range of between €4 and 8 million - or more risky titles in terms of subject or form will have trouble with gap financing. Major distributors of foreign independent films also sounded alarm bells, fearing they will not find a pay- TV window for their more auteur-driven titles, key to their acquisition strategy, a ripple effect for the entire industry. Read more here.
…but France’s sellers dominated festival deals
Sales of both local and international films from French sellers, however, were robust at this year’s market with mk2 - who had a record six films in competition alone this year - selling across the board including Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent to Neon for North America, Mascha Schilinski’s The Sound Of Falling to Mubi for North America and more, and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident to Neon for North America and to Mubi including the UK, among several other major deals. Charades too managed a multi-territorial deal to Mubi for Alpha among other territories and Bi Gan’s Resurrection found homes with top distributors for Les Films du Losange fresh off of its gala screening.
Most French sellers said the deals are taking more time to close, and that market titles not in the official selection are struggling to break out among the noise, but that the market continues to remain active for their slates. Marie-Laure Montironi, EVP of international sales at Pathe which had festival opener Leave One Day and end of festival out of competition title 13 Days, 13 Nights - In The Hell Of Kabul, called the market “more dynamic than Berlin.” Both films in selection have sold across the board. The French studio is also seeing strong interest for market titles such as two-part biopic De Gaulle and Guillaume Canet’s recently announced Karma starring Marion Cotillard that has already sparked major interest on script alone. Montironi says buyers “want high concept films and big packages with stars”.
European industry bouncing back?
President Trump’s pre-festival tariff threat seemed to spur European politicians, policy makers and producers into action at this year’s festival, with a succession of interventions underlining the need to support public film funding and regulations that foster independent production, local stories and a diverse industry.
A slew of senior European politicians tuned up to show their support for the industry, including MEP Emma Rafowicz, who called on the European Commission to “take a stand against American cultural nationalism”, and the Culture Ministers of 22 European countries (including France’s Rachida Dati), publishing a joint letter urging greater support for the distribution of European films. Another politician in Cannes, MEP Laurence Farreng, added: “What is happening with Trump is a chance for us.” Read more here.
Tariff talk
Sellers and buyers agree the market did its best to ignore Trump’s tariff threat. But completely forgetting it throughout the festival wasn’t realistic. UK creative industries minister Chris Bryant headed to Cannes to throw his support behind the UK film industry and help steady the ship, speaking at an event jointly arranged by Bafta, BBC Film, BFI and Film4. While Bryant didn’t directly address the tariffs, he told the room: “Film is nearly always a multinational thing. You cannot create borders around filmmaking.”
At opening night Hollywood actor Robert De Niro, receiving an honorary Palme d’Or, described Trump’s suggested tariff as “unacceptable”. US filmmaker Richard Linklater, speaking at a press conference for his France-shot and French-language Competition title Nouvelle Vague, was resolute the tariffs were “not gonna happen”. US filmmaker Wes Anderson joked about the topic at a presser for his Germany-shot Competition title The Phoenician Scheme, asking: “Can you hold up the movie in customs?”
Not everyone was up for chiming in. Cannes jury president, French actor Juliette Binoche, said she is “not capable to answer” questions on tariffs at the jury’s press conference, but noted: “We can see that he’s fighting, he’s trying in many different ways to save America and save his ass.” Similarly, Cannes director Thierry Fremaux had a muted response to a question on it at the pre-festival press conference. “It’s far too early in the game [to comment],” he said.
Critical darlings
With two films yet to land, Screen’s much- followed Cannes jury grid has not seen one standout title this year (think Toni Erdmann which scored a 3.7 in 2016, or 2018’s Burning with 3.8, the current record holder). The most impressive scores so far are the 3.1s for Sergei Loznita’s Stalin-era drama Two Prosecutors – one of the first titles to premiere - and Jafar Panahi’s condemnation of the Iranian legal system It Was Just An Accident, with no other titles averaging three or above.
Some films have sharply divided critics. Oliver Laxe’s Sirat earned several four-stars (excellent, the top rating) but also scores of one, two and a zero (bad). Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Lynne Ramsay’s Die My love, Oliver Hermanus’ The History Of Sound and Bi Gan’s Resurrection all also received both top and bottom marks from our critics.
Mario Martone’s Fuori props up the grid with a 1.1, nowhere the worst score on the grid historically (Sean Penn’s The Last Face got a shocking 0.2 in 2016), followed by Julia Ducournau’s Alpha on 1.5. Her previous film, Titane, earned just a 1.6 in 2021, and went on to win the Palme d’Or – showing how unpredictable Cannes juries can be.
South Korean sellers forced to adapt
Some South Korean sellers said they, unusually, did not strike a single deal with European buyers at this year’s market. Others have had to diversify their slates to adapt to the challenges, such as Barunson E&A, the studio behind 2019 Palme d’Or winner Parasite, expanding into Indonesia. The global interest for Korean content that erupted around the time of Parasite and continued through the pandemic has seemingly waned. The absence of any Korean feature in official selection for the first time in 12 years was a major blow to sellers who could usually rely on striking deals around the world with a coveted Cannes title. Major firms such as CJ ENM were absent this year. Read more here.
The palm tree incident
The producers of Japanese Directors’ Fortnight title Brand New Landscape called for a “swift investigation” after one of their team was injured by a falling palm tree on the Croisette.
The incident took place on Saturday, traditionally one of the busiest days of the festival, with a 3m-high palm tree falling onto a producer for Japanese company LesPros Entertainment in front of the Mademoiselle Gray Plage Barriere beach. The producer was taken to hospital with “fractures to the nose and parts of the body” and was reportedly in a “stable condition” on Wednesday.
The incident raised concerns about the safety of the palm trees in Cannes, with the producers’ statement calling for “preventative measures to ensure such accidents do not happen again in the future”.
No comments yet