How cannes film festival works

A film that gets booed could be genuinely bad, or it might just have hit the audience strangely. Sometimes a film gets booed at Cannes and goes on to garner wide acclaim. So if you hear that a film has been booed at Cannes, take it with a grain of salt — and read the reviews. In , the dress code at Cannes nearly caused an international incident. They were wearing rhinestone flats.

The backlash was swift and fierce, with many people — including movie stars — calling it sexist. Other stories of women being turned away from premieres for not wearing high heels began to emerge. The incident was still on minds in , when Kristen Stewart, Julia Roberts, and Susan Sarandon all made a point of going barefoot or wearing flats at their premieres. With their move into original content, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have been disrupting the normal festival system for the past few years, and not just at Cannes — Sundance, for instance, has seen a massive influx of buying from streaming services lately.

Both films later released on Netflix and will got a limited theatrical release in the United States, but neither was slated for theatrical release in France. So when it became apparent that Netflix had no intention of pursuing French theatrical release for either of its Cannes films, there was an outcry, especially from the National Federation of French Cinemas FNCF.

In response, the festival created a new rule that takes effect this year: in order to qualify to play in competition at Cannes, a film must have theatrical release in France. The festival explained in a press release :. The festival is pleased to welcome a new operator which has decided to invest in cinema but wants to reiterate its support to the traditional mode of exhibition of cinema in France and in the world.

Consequently, and after consulting its members of the board, the Festival de Cannes has decided to adapt its rules to this unseen situation until now: any film that wishes to compete in competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theaters. This new measure will apply from the edition of the Festival International du Film de Cannes onwards.

You can read a lot more about that here. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Films selected for this programme are referred to as being "in competition" and vie for an assortment of awards.

It is one of the most prestigious film awards on the planet. Although it doesn't always translate to box-office gold as bagging an Oscar for Best Picture can , a win will still give a film a massive boost. For art-house films, it can help secure a wider release and increased revenue; for foreign-language films, it means worldwide distribution.

More red carpets mean more celebrities to pose for photo calls. In turn, this works to enhance the festival's image in the eyes of the press and the cinema-going public, without compromising the artistic integrity of the competition. Accepted file formats endings :. File specifications We only accept multiplexed files i.

Subtitles The Selection Committee will screen films:. For subtitled films, the subtitles must be integrated in to the image. Preparation of the film Make sure that your film has no colour bars or any black sequences before the film starts or after it ends. Please fill in the application form and upload your film online for 26 th March at the latest. The films submitted to Cannes Classics must have the mission of promoting cinematographic heritage works.

The program is based on proposals from right-holders, film catalogue-holders, national archives, cinematheques, studios, producers and distributors. Any entity submitting a film guarantees that it owns the rights of reproduction and diffusion for the projection of the film at the Festival de Cannes, or that it has obtained from the right-holder the necessary authorizations.

It guarantees the Festival de Cannes any third-party recourse relating to a screening of the film as part of the Festival. Please get in touch with the Cannes Classics team for the registration details in order to be able to fill in and process the online form s and send the submitted film s by emailing cannesclassics festival-cannes. Irrespective of the equipment used for shooting the film mini DV, super 8, 35mm Please note that it will be possible to submit a working copy of films being restored or documentaries about cinema.

By completing the registration form you will need to specify whether it is the final version or a work in progress. We will later ask you to send us an excerpt of the restoration which is being carried out or the documentary in its final form.. If it is sent through an express parcel service your package should read "For cultural purposes only" and "No commercial value".

The Head of Cannes Classics will send you all the necessary information in due time, only if your film is selected. Our website uses cookies for analytical purposes optimizing your experience and statistics. Submit a film. To submit a film, you need to: Comply with the Preselection Conditions Fill out the online Entry Form Upload your film online for short films Send your film for feature films to the address indicated at the bottom of the Entry Form If your film is selected, you must comply with the Festival's Rules and Regulations Films may be accepted in the Official Selection for Competition, Out of Competition or Un Certain Regard.

If the film has been selected for an international section competitive or not of a festival, it becomes ineligible for the Festival de Cannes. A selection is international if it presents films from different countries. Films that have not been shown on the Internet or released on DVD Every feature film invited to be in competition must be released theatrically in France in accordance with French legislation pertaining to media chronology rules.

Any beneficiary, producer or authorized representative submitting a feature film commits to honoring this clause. Server reads only JPEG files. Once your submission is complete, contact the Film Department for the server certificate and how to send your KDM. Members of the juries cannot have a film in competition. Jury members are invited by the same selection committee that chooses the films.

The official jurors are all people in the film industry, and more recently are almost exclusively directors or actors. It is an honor to be invited to sit on one of these juries -- an even greater one to be jury president.

The committee invites actors and directors it wants to recognize for great achievement. There are lots of awards at the Cannes Film Festival, but the biggest of them all is the Palme d'Or , which is awarded to the best feature film and the best short film in Competition. In general, when people refer to "the Palme d'Or," they mean the one for feature films.

The Camera d'Or is awarded by a separate jury to the best first-time film in the entire festival, including all sections of the Official Selection, the Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week.

By Cannes standards, a "first-time film" is at least an hour long and its director has never before made a movie of that length for the cinema or TV. One of the coolest things about the awards at Cannes is that they can be a little bit different every year.

Juries have the freedom to add awards as they see fit, depending on the movies in the Official Selection that year. In , "La Noce" by Pavel Lounguine won an award for the best ensemble of actors; in , "Velvet Goldmine" by Todd Haynes was awarded the Prix de la meilleure contribution artistique au Festival International du Film -- the prize for the greatest artistic contribution to the Festival. In , Samuel L. Jackson won a best supporting actor award for his role in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" -- the first supporting actor award presented at the Cannes Film Festival.

To view the entire archive of Cannes Film Festival awards, visit the official Web site. While it is an extremely big deal to win an award at Cannes, there are other prizes to be had too. The screenings themselves are a major aspect of the festival, a place for new films, new artists and new artistic approaches to be seen by the people who matter in the film world.

The Marche du Film at Cannes is the biggest international film market, and whether or not a movie wins the Palme d'Or, it has the chance of attracting the attention of critics and producers who can launch careers in the movie industry. Especially for an "indie" film, an invitation to Cannes can be a huge boost, and a win usually means serious dollars from producers who want to get in on the next big thing.

For more information on the Cannes Film Festival, including details on International Critics' Week and the Directors' Fortnight, as well as travel information, check out the links on the next page.