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Cannes You Dig It!?
The Film World's Attention Turns to France, Plus Picks & Links!
Jason Sondhi
May 17, 2024
The business and art of filmmaking coalesced separately in New York and France for the Upfronts and the Cannes Film Festival, as the streaming strategies of the giant American entertainment and tech conglomerates contrast with some of the best new entries in world cinema in dueling trade magazine headlines. Increasingly the two perspectives are combined in single stories, such as with Megalopolis where the analysis of the film as art is almost invariably accompanied by commentary on what it is saying about the industry at large, or its commercial prospects there within.
It’s made for fascinating reading from afar, though it’s sucked some of the oxygen out of anything else happening. Still, here are the things we’re paying attention to, followed by S/W picks and festival updates.
🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To
The above image made the rounds in advance of this week’s Upfronts, where networks and streamers woo brand advertisers. It’s the debut of a new cross-platform metric from Nielsen and many were surprised and heartened to see Disney in the top spot. I was more shocked by second place though—this is just viewing on a television, not including mobile or desktop! People keep asking what the future of TV is and it might just be YouTube… 🤷🏽
All the celebrities not at the upfronts are at Cannes, but, it is a short film that produced some of the earliest headlines. Judith Godrèche is credited with sparking France’s version of the #MeToo movement and her film Moi Aussi played during the opening of Un Certain Regard. The filmmaker describes the film as “…an attempt to provide a collective voice to the victims of sexual violence,” as she incorporated a thousand first-hand accounts that were anonymously integrated into the film.
As for the shorts in competition, Céline is at the festival and has seen the official selection. Her top pick? She was blown away by Amarela from the Brazilian-Japanese filmmaker André Hayato Saito. Watch the trailer.
Aside from screening completed films, a lot of business comes out of Cannes and an early announcement caught our eye: several prominent talents, including Juliette Binoche in her writing and directing debut, will participate in Bike Me Up, a new anthology film in the vein of the Paris J’Taime.
This week’s S/W pick, MumLife, was at Cannes in 2022 in La Cinef and in honor of its Australian origin Rob put together a collection of some of his favorite Australian shorts for Shortverse. Did he miss one of your favorites?
“All These Creatures” famously won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2018
From Deadline: A24 Partners With ‘Hereditary’ And ‘Talk To Me’ Producers For Feature Adaptation Of Masha Ko’s Sundance Short ‘The Looming’
Warner just announced a new Lord of the Rings film, titled The Hunt For Gollum. So what did that mean for the 2009 fan film that also happened to be titled The Hunt For Gollum? It meant getting pulled from YouTube due to copyright. Fortunately, the film, considered one of the best fan films ever made, is back after fan outrage. IGN has a round-up of the whole brouhaha.
Quick shoutout to the 2024 Screencraft Short Film Screenplay Award Winners. S/W alum and award winner Nuhash Humayun is serving as a mentor and we hope these scripts get turned into shorts ASAP!
I’m wary of turning the newsletter into an AI discussion every week, but can’t help but share this. Multi-alum Sean Buckelew has been releasing animated short shorts of emotionally volatile AI gadgets over the last few weeks. Discover the Roomba with a foot fetish, or the self-driving car obsessed with self-care. In the latest, Buckelew warns “I beat my computer at chess and it tried to kill me” 👀
Last thing for this week: we’re very pleased to add Mariana “Rekka” Dominguez and Jennifer Montas to the Short of the Week/Shortverse family as official contributors! The pair did stellar work as interns in recent months and we’re happy to graduate them into full team members. 🙌🏽
Rekka and Jennifer
🎊 Festival Updates
I’ll be out this evening for the opening night of Rooftop Film’s 28th Summer Series. An iconic New York institution, Rooftop’s 1st screening of the summer is always a short film program, and this year’s has a great lineup, including our favorite Sundance 2024 short Bug Diner and the outrageous comedy Pennies From Heaven.
💥 Happening Now
📅 Upcoming Deadlines
That’s it for this edition. See you next week!