24 curious facts about the Cannes Film Festival | Little White Lies

Cannes Film Festival

24 curi­ous facts about the Cannes Film Festival

29 Apr 2022

Woman in sequinned dress posing on red carpet.
Woman in sequinned dress posing on red carpet.
Some of the best nuggets of glitz and scan­dal through­out the his­to­ry of the most famous inter­na­tion­al film festival.

I nev­er draw fauns, cen­taurs or myth­i­cal crea­tures any­where else,” said Picas­so of the French Riv­iera. They only seem to live in these parts.” Indeed it is a place where sub­lime visions are realised – the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val is 75 in 2022 and remains an exam­ple of the con­tin­u­ous promi­nence of this Cote d’Azur locus of inter­na­tion­al cinema.

Of course, the fes­ti­val has a rich his­to­ry of glam­our and artis­tic inno­va­tion over the years, but there have also been scan­dals and con­tro­ver­sies a‑plenty. Inspired by the num­ber of steps on the famous red car­pet lead­ing to the Salle Lumiere, where dreams are made and bro­ken, here are some intrigu­ing facts about the world’s most beloved film festival.

1. The Cannes Film Fes­ti­val was set up in 1939, in oppo­si­tion to the increas­ing fas­cist influ­ence over the Venice Film Fes­ti­val. Though not the unan­i­mous favourites, Olympia by Leni Riefen­stahl and Luciano Ser­ra, and Pilota by Gof­fre­do Alessan­dri­ni were giv­en the main award – the Mus­soli­ni Cup – in 1938. Rep­re­sent­ing the French del­e­ga­tion was the diplo­mat Philippe Erlanger who, out­raged, decid­ed to set up a rival inter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­val, with no polit­i­cal pres­sures, cen­sor­ship or restrictions.

2. This Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, as it was then called, was ini­tial­ly going to be held in Biar­ritz, but var­i­ous groups cam­paigned for it to be sit­u­at­ed in Cannes, and so the deci­sion was over­turned in favour of the so-called Pearl of the Riv­iera’. So yes: Christi­na Aguilera’s much-mocked ques­tion So, where is the Cannes film fes­ti­val being held this year?” would once have been pertinent.

3. The Fes­ti­val was sup­posed to go ahead in Sep­tem­ber 1939. How­ev­er, war was declared and pro­ceed­ings ground to a halt. The USSR con­tri­bu­tion to that year’s line-up, If War Comes Tomor­row, direct­ed by Lazar Antsi-Polovsky, was unfor­tu­nate­ly apt. It was not until 1946 that the Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val was able to be inau­gu­rat­ed. There was not yet a ded­i­cat­ed build­ing – screen­ings were held in a casi­no. Ret­ro­spec­tive awards were giv­en out in a trib­ute cer­e­mo­ny in 2002 to the films that were nev­er shown in 1939.

4. The first few fes­ti­vals were more a cel­e­bra­tion than com­pe­ti­tion – most films that were entered won some­thing. Eleven films received the Grand Prix in 1946. Dur­ing the 1950s when the fes­ti­val real­ly took off and gained the glitz it now known for – helped no end by the pres­ence of stars like Cary Grant, Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bar­dot – it became more competitive.

5. In 1949, there were a series of sar­to­r­i­al inci­dents which came to be known as the Affair of the Ties. Giv­en the gor­geous weath­er, many atten­dees went to bathe in between screen­ings. Con­se­quent­ly, the organ­is­ing com­mit­tee decid­ed that some screen­ings would require a tie to be worn and some would not, lead­ing to con­fu­sion and offence, as some direc­tors thought their film was giv­en less mer­it if it was screened sans tie-requirements.

6. Despite the festival’s found­ing prin­ci­ples, dur­ing the Cold War an arti­cle was added to the Festival’s con­sti­tu­tion that allowed for a form of diplo­mat­ic cen­sor­ship. Between 1950 and 1956, provoca­tive films were allowed to be removed from the com­pe­ti­tion despite their cin­e­mat­ic qual­i­ty. Ciel sans étoiles, direct­ed by Hel­mut Käut­ner, was pulled from the com­pe­ti­tion in 1952 so as not to elic­it a neg­a­tive Sovi­et response, and the West Ger­many embassy request­ed that Night and Fog, a doc­u­men­tary by Alain Resnais, be with­drawn from the Fes­ti­val in 1956 – a com­pro­mise was reached where­by it was screened out of competition.

7. In 1953, Picas­so obtained a spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion to break the noto­ri­ous­ly stiff fes­ti­val dress code and enter the Palais wear­ing a sheep­skin coat for a screen­ing of The Wages of Fear by Hen­ri-Georges Clouzot. Clouzot lat­er made a doc­u­men­tary about the artist, The Mys­tery of Picas­so, which received a Spe­cial Jury Prize in 1956.

8. Around 4500 jour­nal­ists attend the fes­ti­val on aver­age – Cannes has the sec­ond-largest media cov­er­age of any event after the Olympics. This makes it a prime loca­tion for stag­ing and snap­ping icon­ic images. In 1954, mul­ti­ple paparazzi were injured as they scram­bled to pho­to­graph the British actor Simone Sil­va top­less on the beach. She was unof­fi­cial­ly named Miss Fes­ti­val 1954’ but was asked to leave as her antics were con­sid­ered vul­gar, pub­lic­i­ty-hun­gry and a dis­trac­tion from the Fes­ti­val proper.

9. The Palme d’Or was cre­at­ed in 1955 – the fes­ti­val organ­is­ers invit­ed sev­er­al jew­ellers to com­pete to design the tro­phy. The orig­i­nal win­ner was Parisian jew­eller Luci­enne Lazon. The tro­phy has since under­gone sev­er­al design revi­sions. Each year, two reserve Palme d’Ors are made in case there is more than one win­ner – or in case one tro­phy gets broken.

10. In 1968 a group of direc­tors brought the fes­ti­val to a stand­still in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the stu­dent protests being held all over France. Among oth­ers, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle and François Truf­faut refused to let the cur­tain go up on Car­los Sauras film Pep­per­mint Frap­pé, and screen­ings were sub­se­quent­ly stopped.

Black and white image of a group of people at a formal event. A man in a tuxedo stands between an older man and woman, all dressed in formal attire.

11. In 1971, The Mar­ried Cou­ple of the Year Two, a roman­tic com­e­dy star­ring Jean-Paul Bel­mon­do, closed the fes­ti­val. Cou­ples who could prove that they had been mar­ried that year (1902) were invit­ed to the screen­ing, and a spe­cial box was reserved for new­ly­weds mar­ried on the day the film was shown.

12. In 1975, Paul New­man set off a pho­tog­ra­phers’ strike – tired from his jour­ney, he refused to pose on arrival. When he per­formed the rit­u­al climb­ing of the steps in the evening, pho­tog­ra­phers placed their cam­eras at their feet in protest. Isabelle Adjani was greet­ed with the same response in 1983.

13. In 1987, Mau­rice Pialat was might­i­ly booed as he went to col­lect his award for Under the Sun of Satan. His leg­endary response, deliv­ered with a raised fist which amus­ing­ly con­trast­ed Pialat’s grand­fa­ther­ly cardi­gan, was that it didn’t mat­ter if the audi­ence didn’t like him, because I can tell you I don’t like you either.”

14. In 2001, a group of actors pro­mot­ing 24 Hour Par­ty Peo­ple – about the Man­ches­ter music scene in the 80s and 90s – threw fake dead pigeons at each oth­er out­side a restau­rant, imi­tat­ing The Hap­py Mon­days, who they play in the film. Din­ers, believ­ing the birds to be real, were most­ly una­mused, except for Joel and Ethan Coen, who were that year joint­ly award­ed Best Direc­tor for The Man Who Wasn’t There. They report­ed­ly appre­ci­at­ed the enter­tain­ment fac­tor that the stunt lent their lunch.

15. Pub­lic­i­ty stunts are a fre­quent fea­ture at the Fes­ti­val – fights are staged, planes are rent­ed, mank­i­nis are unleashed. In 2009, to pro­mote the Bel­gian black com­e­dy The Mis­for­tu­nates, the cast decid­ed to recre­ate a scene from the film by cycling naked through the cen­tre of Cannes. The direc­tor, Felix van Groenin­gen, claimed that a motor­bike fol­lowed behind them with their under­wear in case they got arrested.

16. Many films prompt audi­ence out­cry – the boo­ing, as well as the applause, at Cannes is leg­endary. But in 2002, Gas­par Noés Irre­versible proved so shock­ing that it prompt­ed one of the biggest walk­outs in fes­ti­val his­to­ry. 250 peo­ple left the screen­ing, and fire war­dens admin­is­tered oxy­gen to the 20 peo­ple who fainted.

17. Lars Von Tri­ers con­tro­ver­sial Antichrist was giv­en an unof­fi­cial anti-prize in 2009 by the Ecu­meni­cal Jury, who have sat at var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­vals since 1973 and each year give an award to a film which has spe­cial spir­i­tu­al mer­it. They decid­ed that Antichrist was most sexist’.

18. In 2013, around the time of the Fes­ti­val, there was a wave of jew­el heists in hotels where many of the rich and famous stayed while attend­ing Cannes – the last of which was notice­ably inspired by 1955’s To Catch A Thief. 103 mil­lion euros worth of jew­els were stolen from an exhi­bi­tion at the Carl­ton Hotel enti­tled Extra­or­di­nary Dia­monds. The thief was nev­er caught.

19. Also in 2013, a three-way Palm d’Or was award­ed for the first time to Blue Is the Warmest Colour – direc­tor Abdel­latif Kechiche and stars Adèle Exar­chopou­los and Léa Sey­doux all received the award, as the judges thought that giv­en a slight change of cast the film would not have worked as well. Kechiche con­sid­ered this some­thing of an insult and auc­tioned his tro­phy to fund his next film.

20. Secu­ri­ty at Cannes is famous­ly tight – every­one in atten­dance must have a spe­cif­ic badge. But there are excep­tions. 2013 was a great year for fes­ti­val gos­sip, as a man pos­ing as Psy, the South Kore­an rap­per of Gang­nam Style infamy, was revealed to be an imposter after hav­ing blagged his way into mul­ti­ple par­ties and posed for pho­tos with fans. He was only caught after being spot­ted by the real Psy’s manager.

21. Though there is no spe­cif­ic Fes­ti­val rule spec­i­fy­ing shoe height or style, a num­ber of women were denied access to the fes­ti­val based on their flat footwear in 2015, in what came to be dubbed heel­gate.’ In response, Denis Vil­leneuve and the male cast of Sicario vowed to wear heels to climb the steps, but dis­ap­point­ing­ly nev­er deliv­ered. A num­ber of high-pro­file protests fol­lowed the scan­dal, with actors such as Julia Roberts and Kris­ten Stew­art shuck­ing their stilet­tos and walk­ing the red car­pet barefoot.

22. In 2018, Thier­ry Fré­maux, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Fes­ti­val since 2007, attempt­ed to dis­cour­age self­ies on the red car­pet. He admit­ted he didn’t have the pow­er to ban them out­right but explained that the fes­ti­val did want to reduce the dis­or­der and traf­fic caused by peo­ple tak­ing self­ies on the steps. He called self­ies ridicu­lous and grotesque,” and warned: You nev­er look as ugly as you do in a self­ie.”

23. Each year, a Palm Dog award is giv­en out to the best on-screen hound. Pre­vi­ous win­ners include Bruno from Belleville Ren­dezvous, Mops from Marie Antoinette and Brandy from Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood. As of 2018, there is also an Under­dog cat­e­go­ry as part of the Palm Dog awards, which will go to a dog, human or con­spic­u­ous­ly deserv­ing crea­ture for fac­ing adver­si­ty as the underdog’.

24. Sur­prise, sur­prise – there are 24 steps up to the Palais des Fes­ti­vals, cov­ered by 60 metres of car­pet. The car­pet is changed three times a day so that it looks fresh under famous feet as the steps are climbed and pho­tos are tak­en. As a result of media pres­sure for the Fes­ti­val to address its envi­ron­men­tal impact, the car­pet has been ful­ly recy­clable since 2016.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, month­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.

You might like