What we saw at Cannes Film Festival, 2024- part 5

 

The New York-based indie movie outfit has been dubbed "the Palme d'Or whisperer", and for good reason. It’s current track record is making the world's most powerful movie producers turn green with envy.

Parasite (2019), Titane (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022) and Anatomy of a Fall (2023) - the last four winners in Cannes, since the 2020 edition was cancelled because of COVID - were all released in US theatres by NEON, under deals struck before they won the prize.

And they’ve done it again with Anora, as they bought North American rights to Sean Baker’s film weeks before Cannes kicked off, in a move that cements the company’s soothsaying reputation. 

NEON also snapped up The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which won a Special Jury Prize, as well as Julia Ducournau’s “genre-defying” Titane follow-up Alpha, which should come out next year – and maybe feature in Cannes’ 78th edition.

Last year’s edition of Cannes was a shambolic mess and the international press found it very hard booking tickets. Cannes head honcho Thierry Frémaux even had to apologise. And it seems the bellyaching did not fall on deaf ears, as this year’s online booking system worked like a dream. As long as you were online at 7am, you had every chance of securing your spot in the screenings you wanted. Chapeau, Cannes.

The songs featured in the Competition films were rather good. So much so, we did an Ideal Cannes Playlist piece to honour the art of the needle drop.

Shout-out to Miguel Gomes’ wonderful and poetic inclusion of Bobby Darin’s ‘Beyond The Sea’ at the end of Grand Tour, which failed to make the final cut because we forgot all about it! 37 films watched in 11 days – some details are bound to fall by the wayside.

A female security guard was at the heart of a scandal this year, with a viral video showing ex-Destiny's Child Kelly Rowland posing for pictures on the red carpet before an apparent row broke out. Rowland said she was treated differently to other women on the red carpet. Worse, the security guard in question has prior form in Cannes, leading many to call for her dismissal.

A late-festival bit of gossip, granted, but it did briefly dominate the conversation. 

That being said, many thanks to all the security and staff at the Croisette - whether in Debussy, Varda, the Grand Théâtre Lumière, or the Palais, their professionalism and kind words were always appreciated, and one bad appple shouldn't spoil the bunch.