SHOWTIME FOR STARS AT THE 70TH BIRTHDAY EDITION OF THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

BLACK-TIE SCREENINGS AND MIDNIGHT MOVIES ON THE BEACH

Despite the tough security measures with unprecedented numbers of police and soldiers deployed, glamour and beauty will reign on the palm-fringed Croisette promenade. As usual, hardcore fans were already standing in line outside the Palais des Festivals venue a full 24 hours early to catch some selfies with their favorite artists. Let’s face it: your chances to attend a film screening inside the main competition are low. However, you can steal a glance of Hollywood movie stars and bask in the atmosphere. The Cannes film festival is not only about black-tie screenings. It also includes midnight movies on the beach with numerous free-access sidebars and side events. Tourists and movie fans from all over the world will love the perfect spring weather of Cannes.

THE FESTIVAL THAT WENT FROM “CAN’T” TO CANNES

The Cannes film festival is all about erasing national boundaries in the name of cinema. This goal is the result of the political mood of the 1930s when the fascist regimes in Europe were gaining ground. In fact, the festival was widely conceived as a counter-initiative to the Venice Film Festival headed by Mussolini who made it the main showcase for fascist propaganda. Philippe Erlanger, a French servant and historian, put forward the idea of making a festival of “the free world”. The official wording was clear: “The major American, English and French film companies would be happy not to return to Venice where politics has supplanted art. Need one add that recent racist measures have frightened away some of the leading figures in American cinema? If, therefore, the Venice Festival should no longer have the same success and be replaced by a similar organization in another country, it would be desirable that France be called on to take advantage of this”. Cannes was preferred to Biarritz, Vichy, Algiers, Vichy, Deauville, Aix-les-Bains and Le Touquet, owing to a powerful lobbying by local hoteliers. The rest is history…