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When Did Cannes Film Festival First Begin? History Explored Ahead Of This Year's Event
Cannes Film Festival is all set to raise its curtains over the coming weekend. While the celebrities and filmmakers anticipate the ceremony, we will be looking at the history of the prestigious event.
The commencement of Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner. While the event celebrates the spirit of films and cinema culture over decades, here’s looking at how France adopted the prestigious ceremony after the end of war with Venice. The categories of the festival, including prize selection, jury, screening of the films, and more, date back to 1938. Explore the timeline for Cannes de Festival ahead of this year’s event.
How it all began
It all started in 1938, when Hitler and the Nazis dominated the Monstra Film Festival, prompting the members to announce the Missioulini Cup as the winners despite the jury's decision. Enraged by the announcement, the French diplomats and historians worked on the concept of a free festival that was held without any restrictions.
The plan was officially announced after Jean Zay, a member of the French Ministry of Education, gave it a go. The gates to the International Film Festival in Cannes opened on September 1, 1939. The Venice Film Festival, too, commenced at the same time.
Approval of the Film Festival
Amidst the tension building up in Germany, where the Military changed aspects of the country, France initially decided upon each country sending in one movie entry to be judged at the festival. Subsequently, the members reconsidered the plan and decided that the countries should share several film entries. Nevertheless, only nine nations decided to submit films for the festival because of the country's warlike circumstances.
Cannes being announced as the Festival City
While France planned on organizing the festival on a grand scale, Italy, too, wanted its ceremony to have a prestigious setting. The clash went on until the French jotted down around 10 venues to organize the ceremony. Cannes and Biarritz made it to the final ten. Soon after the final list was announced, the audience was confident that Cannes would be the chosen one.
However, on May 9, 1939, the jury announced that the ceremony would be held at Biarritz and would be the festival home for the coming years. The team at Cannes began working on the plan again and increased the municipality's financial participation. On May 31, 1939, Cannes was announced as the winner, and the French government officially signed the papers to officiate the venue as the Festival City.
Film Festival amidst war
The first film festival was supposed to commence on September 1, 1939. However, amidst the war situation, the jury members decided to postpone the ceremony for 3 days. The festival goers arrived in August and attended the pre-party to get into the feels of the event. The ceremony was supposed to be held at the auditorium of the Municipal Casino. The official poster for the first festival was revealed by painter Jean Gabriel Domergui.
Much to the jury and festival goers’ dismay, the German troops attacked Poland on September 3, making it very difficult for the event to go on for days. The festival's members organized a single screen and premiered William Dieterle's American film Quasimodo. The promotion poster for the film was built on a beach in Paris.
The digital era
After going through the turmoil of war and a lot of trial and error sessions, the film festival was hit by the digital era. The modern era brought major changes in the functioning of the ceremony as well as the way audience viewed it. The new decade brought the cinematographers together on the red carpet, and they were recognized for their part in the movies. Ever since the 1980s, the Cannes Film Festival has been known for its filmmaking aspect rather than only glamourizing the celebrities appearing on screen.
In 2000s, a global filmmaking forum was launched, with initially only 12 countries being a part of it. As of today, the count has gone up to 60. Over the past 10 years, Festival de Cannes has welcomed new talent with open arms and introduced the world to different perspectives on movies.
Cannes Film Festival 2024 will open on May 14 and go on till May 25. Greta Gerwig, the actress and director, will serve as the juror at the ceremony.
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