Cannes Film Festival is indisputably the most prestigious and the biggest film festival its the ‘world cup’ of showbiz. Not just because of the long history of premiering some of the greatest films and attracting the biggest names in the industry and partly because it is simply the MOST glamourous. As cinephiles know, the festival has launched the careers of many well-known filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino amongst thousands. Basically, an accolade in Cannes is it!

But Cannes’s importance extends above and beyond the Palme d’Or award. The festival also plays a big role in certain niche films seeing daylight. One of the most important events for a lot of Cannes attendees is the Marché du Film – the world’s busiest movie market.  

Movie distributors that specialise in finding ways to get audiences for foreign, arthouse and other niche films often make their most important deals at the Cannes Film Festival. Filmmakers who hope to find funding, -and wives sorry!-  distribution for their films spend their days and nights networking in Cannes during the festival. We must warn you though, a lot of ‘financiers, distributors, and publicists’ you meet at Cannes Film Festival parties are nothing but hot air, with no IMDB credits on their name, so make sure you check their credentials first.

That aside, the 70th Cannes Film Festival saw yet another star-studded opening. We saw a great lineup of A-listers and celebrities in attendance. Lara Lieto, Marion Cotillard, Hailey Baldwin, (who had a hazy fit (?) and for some yet unknown reason marched off very displeased and yours truly didn’t get the appropriate images. Uma Thurman, Julianne Moore, Sara Sampaio, Naomie Harris, Eva Herzigova, Emily Ratajkowski, Lily-Rose Depp, Susan Sarandon -and the indefatigable Joe Alvarez ensuring celebs exposure- showcased the abundance of designers’ frocks.

The official jury of the 70th Cannes Film Festival

• Pedro Almodovar – president
• Jessica Chastain,
• Will Smith
• Fan Bingbing (!) 
• Paolo Sorrentino
• Maren Ade
• Agnès Jaoui
• Park Chan-Wook
• Gabriel Yared

All jury members were happily posing to the press and exchanging pleasantries on the red carpet.

The opening Film Ismael’s Ghosts

Ismael’s Ghosts is a French drama by director Arnaud Desplechin, who was the jury of last Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the tale of a widowed film director who is in the middle of making a film about an atypical diplomat inspired by his brother. While he has started a new life with Sylvia, he still mourns the death of a former lover, Carlotta, who passed away 20 years earlier; then Carlotta returns from the dead, causing Sylvia to run away

L’Oreal Open Cinema at the Cannes Film Festival

Most of Cannes Film Festival is a ‘trade only’ event, meaning that all screening, press calls and premieres’ attendees must be industry professionals, media and must get accredited by the Festival. But if you have missed your chance this year, there may be a reason to cheer up. There are ways for ordinary people without a badge to see films there too.  

The festival plays a selection of films for the public on the beach, every night at 9 o’clock. Some film lovers with no other connection to the film industry are able to get a Cannes Cinephile badge by being a member of a film appreciation club. A selection of films by up-and-coming directors play in the Critics’ Week section of the festival, and the festival distributes tickets for these before the screenings; while badge holders get priority, non-badge holders who get in line early can grab them too.