Hollywood Ghosts Cannes and Trump takes Ratner to China
Meta arrives as a major sponsor; politics and AI are Topic A on Cannes Day One.
The Cannes Film Festival’s first red carpet got underway tonight, featuring 88 year old provocateur, Jane Fonda and Chinese actress Gong Li who were on hand to give New Zealander Peter Jackson an honorary award for “Lord of the Rings,” ensuring global appeal for the world’s biggest film event. Li noted that, “Jane comes from the west and I come from the east. Today we stand together here, this is the magic of the Cannes Film Festival.”
Half way around the world, the West was getting ready to meet the East in a very different way. The Chinese were rolling out their own red carpet for President Trump’s state visit to Beijing. While the Cannes Festival director Thierry Fremaux bemoaned the absence of Hollywood studio fare at this year’s event, telling the press, “I hope the studio films come back,” it emerged that “Melania,” director Brett Ratner was aboard Air Force One with Trump. Ratner is planning to scout film locations in China for his next movie, “Rush Hour 4,” according to the South China Morning Post, reporting that Ratner was planning to shoot most of the movie there. But wasn’t it just last year that Trump was raging about how the world had “stolen,” the American movie business? He threatened to slap a 100 percent tariff on movies shot outside of the USA. The threat has been repeated since but appears to have had little follow-up to date.
Should politics be avoided in Cannes on the promotional trail? Aging backwards Demi Moore was doing her best to bring back the eighties in a Jacquemus confetti dress and white framed glasses and was asked for her thoughts. She responded, “part of art is about expression, so if we start censoring ourselves then we shut down the core of creativity which is where we can discover truth and answers.”
Screenwriter and jury member Paul Laverty didn’t shy away from controversy sharing his feelings about how Hollywood had shunned Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo for their views on Gaza while he praised this year’s Cannes Film poster featuring Sarandon’s movie, “Thelma & Louise,” now 35 years old. (Cannes even hosts a Palestine Pavillion to help filmmakers sell their movies.)
Next up the inevitable scarlett letters of the creative industries - artificial intelligence. Ahead of the festival, Cannes’ Fremaux had declared movies will need AI labels. Tonight, director Guillermo del Toro was more blunt about his thoughts saying simply: “Fuck AI.”
If an anti-tech backlash is brewing then no-one told the sales agents at the festival. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta just one upped Jeff and Lauren Sanchez’ Met Gala sponsorship by signing on as a new multi-year sponsor at Cannes, alongside the likes of BMW and Mastercard. (Full list here.) Meta is bringing a host of creators and their own “reporter,” to interview guests while wearing the controversial Ray-Ban glasses that enable instant facial identification. Meta is based in the ritzy Majestic Hotel and also touts that it’s a tech partner for “John Lennon: the Last Interview,” a documentary film directed by Steven Soderbergh, which is part of the official selection at the festival. For the record Meta’s AI spend is forecast to be $135 billion this year. Yes that’s the company that owns Instagram, Threads, Facebook and Whatsapp that you’ll be using to post your best selfies all week. Meanwhile Meta president Dina Powell McCormick was part of Trump’s delegation of AI MVPs to China, alongside Elon Musk and Tim Cook.
Never one to be left out of a political debate, Fonda closed out the opening ceremony sharing that she believed in, “voices in the street, especially now.” I wonder if they can hear her on the mega-yachts in the harbor.
PRINT IS ALIVE AND WELL IN FRANCE
I headed to Cafe Poet behind the Hotel de Ville and grabbed the weekend print magazines which are bursting with Margot Robbie ads for Chanel and Cannes related features on the state of the film business. But I was surprised to see Les Echos, a financial newspaper owned by LVMH, running a huge feature on Jay Penske, the owner of most of the Hollywood trades and Rolling Stone to name a few of his assets. The article wondered about how little is known about one of Hollywood most powerful men. It churns through a lot of debate about his monopoly but doesn’t really add much to what’s already known. You can read it here perhaps your French is better than mine.
Drop me your news, events, scoop and thoughts on the festival. Claireatki@me.com. More grand themes, and brand watching tomorrow.
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