Author|Zhiyuanjun
The annual Cannes Film Festival is back in action.
This film festival is a real Chinese year, with a total of 8 Chinese feature films shortlisted, including big productions such as "Sauce Garden Lane" and "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", as well as the latest works of six generations of directors such as Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye, who have always been favored by Cannes, "Merry Generation" and "An Unfinished Movie" were shortlisted for the official unit. The last time Cannes featured a Chinese-language film produced in the mainland in the main competition was "The Party at the Southern Station" in 2019.
The main visual poster of this year's Cannes Film Festival
Cannes has always been a blessed place for Chinese-language films, and for small and medium-budget feature film producers, it is even more like a palace. The information received by Xiaoyu is that 100% of small and medium-cost producers choose Cannes as their first choice when submitting to the film festival. This is not only because of Cannes' popularity, but also because Cannes has a strong distribution capacity and publicity effect for art films. More than 80% of the films that can enter the official Cannes section can find distributors, and 100% of the main competition units can be sold, which is a feat that no film market in the world can do.
It can also be seen from the recent film list that there are a large number of films in China that want to take the single-plank bridge of Cannes. But it won't be easy.
At this year's Cannes Film Festival, there was speculation in the media that there might be a "big scene" of two mainland films gathering in the main competition, you must know that since "The True Story of Ah Q" represented the mainland in Cannes for the first time, there has never been a precedent for two mainland films to be selected at the same time. In the end, only Jia Zhangke's "Merry Generation" entered the main competition unit, but the power of this year's Chinese films should not be underestimated.
At the moment when the Chinese stars shine on the red carpet, what we should actually know more is, what are the operating rules of Cannes? Why were these films selected? These are the most valuable pieces of information for other films in the mainland.
First of all, you have to know what factors determine the selection of films in Cannes, which of course has to start with the history of the Cannes Film Festival.
The purpose determines the number of roads
The Cannes Film Festival was founded in 1939, and its original name was not "Cannes International Film Festival", but "International Film Festival". In view of the fact that the Venice Film Festival had become a puppet of the Nazis, Jean Jay, Minister of Public Administration and Art of France, decided to establish the festival, and the first decided to hold it in Cannes, under the chairmanship of Louis Lumière, the director of the film "The Train Arrives".
On the opening day, the German army blitzkrieg in Poland officially began, and the Second World War officially began, and the festival was forced to cancel.
In 1946, after the victory in World War II, the International Film Festival reopened in Cannes, with the support of three institutions: the French Film Union, the French Ministry of Education and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To this day, they are still behind the Festival de Cannes, and their main source of funding is mainly from the subsidies of these three institutions.
The New York Times reported on the first Cannes Film Festival
According to the positioning of these three companies, the Cannes Film Festival has set three main directions at the beginning, one is to support the development of the French film industry, the second is to revitalize the world film industry, and the third is to provide a stage for world filmmakers. These three directions are decisive factors in all aspects of the Cannes Film Festival.
The capital logic behind this is that the Cannes Film Festival must first play the role of supporting the French film industry. Therefore, whether it is a competition, a screening or a market, whether it is the film itself or the distributors and producers participating in the exhibition, in the case of equal quality levels, France is the priority.
The second is to revitalize the world film industry, which determines the logic of the Cannes Film Festival industry first. To date, the Festival de Cannes has never been open to the general public, but is attended by distributors, exhibitors, producers, film critics and other members of the film industry. In other words, only the types of work in all aspects of film production and trading can enter the Cannes Film Festival. In the past, when you went to the Cannes Film Festival, you would get a media badge with white, pink, blue and yellow colors to prioritize it. White is the superlative, which means that all rights are preferred. In addition, all aspects of his market trading settings fully reflect the first attribute of the industry.
The third is to provide a stage for world filmmakers. This gives Cannes a higher cinematic vision, and at the same time, it is necessary to balance regions and nationalities to ensure that every ethnic group and culture can have a place at the Cannes Film Festival. This determines that Cannes must be "average" at the beginning of its creation, and each region will have several places in Cannes.
The purpose determines the number of roads, and these three points determine the overall strategic implementation of the Cannes Film Festival.
Is quality the only criterion?
Fugu-kun has privately contacted many directors who have submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, and their biggest question is not how to submit to the Cannes Film Festival, but the confusion about the selection rules.
In the main competition unit of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, there was a film "Daughter of the Sun", which not only set the lowest score in the house book that year, but also the countdown in the history of Cannes, which surprised many Chinese directors. Later, a director asked Fugu-kun a question, ""The Daughter of the Sun" is so ugly, why did this film enter the main competition, but my film didn't even choose?" "Most filmmakers who may not be familiar with the rules of international film festivals will have such questions.
The Daughter of the Sun
This shows that everyone has a deep misunderstanding of the film festival's selection process. The quality of the film is of course an important factor in determining the choice of film, but it is not the only factor. After the personal practice of some producers, they told Fugujun that the selection of films at the film festival has always been divided into tracks. This is due to the mission that the Festival de Cannes has set since its inception.
As mentioned above, the first task of the Festival de Cannes is to support the French film industry, and the backer behind it is the French Film Alliance. It is an institution of French filmmakers, whose membership and patronage are understandable. Cannes has to make a trade-off between the festival and the supporting institutions, and if the relationship breaks down, the end result could be that Cannes no longer exists.
The main competition of this year's Cannes "French team" represents "Wild Diamonds"
In the main competition of Cannes in 2024, there are six films whose main language is French or whose first production country is France, and these six places are the places locked by the French team, and there must be a certain number of French films every year, and the number will not differ by more than two. There are 7 films produced by the United Kingdom and the United States, because this is the largest advertiser area in Cannes, and the English-speaking region is the world's largest film market, Cannes has to pay attention.
The rest of the places should be evenly distributed in each region. The Asian side gave Japan and Southeast Asia last year, and this year China and Iran, each with only one place. Cannes will give this place to the most mature, influential, and most qualified authors in the region this year. And this year, Lou Ye and Jia Zhangke both have new films, which almost determines that the shortlisted films on the Chinese side can only be selected from the two.
Other authors, those of sufficient quality, will be placed in order in sub-units. The selection process of the sub-unit is exactly the same as that of the main competition unit, and it is still selected according to the country and language and culture track.
This can answer the question of the director that Fugu-kun knows, "Why is his quality not as good as mine, but he can enter the main competition"? Of course, the main competition has a quality bottom line, and if it is really not qualified, it may be better to lack than to abuse.
Why is it always Jia Zhangke?
The selection committee of the Festival de Cannes has three different levels, the first level is a group of young teams that filter out the rough films from the first level, and the rest of the films go to the second level. The second tier is film critics and filmmakers, who re-select films before they are selected on the official selection committee. This official selection committee is directly led by artistic director Thierry Fumao, and after internal discussion and voting, it is sent to Fumao, who then decides whether a film will stay or not.
Artistic Director of the Festival de Cannes, Thierry Fumao
Every year after the end of Cannes, these filmmakers begin to prepare for the next edition of the Festival de Cannes. They will fly all over the world, discovering the latest authors at various film festivals and regions. Each of these filmmakers has their own specialty, some of them have a better understanding of East Asian culture and focus on East Asia, while others have a better understanding of South America and will focus their work on South America. The selection committee, which Fukumao personally chairs, includes researchers from all over the world in various cultural fields. Fugu-kun had met these filmmakers at other film festivals, and from the conversation, he knew that they would not watch all of these films, and they did not have time to watch so many works. They will focus on watching the works of some more familiar directors first, so the works of first-line art film directors such as Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai, Hou Xiaoxian, Cai Mingliang, Zhang Yimou, and Wong Kar-wai will be seen first.
Jia Zhangke's "Merry Generation"
Looking at some other less important directors or new directors that I have seen at other film festivals in the past, Guan Hu, Wei Shujun, and Qiu Yang are all in this sequence. Next, the filmmaker will selectively look at the works of some lesser-known directors, mainly to see the director's previous resume, whether he has production experience, and whether he has published works. At this time, it is the time to measure the team's ability, and whether it can be directly sent to the film selector determines whether the film can be seen to a certain extent. After the filmmaker sees the film, the quality and authorship of the film are affected.
The filmmaker will consider multiple dimensions such as authorship, attention, actors, and political factors.
First of all, the film festival pays more attention to the authorship of the film, that is, the characteristics of the audiovisual language, and then the political and cultural factors. The selector will determine whether the film is representative of the region and decide whether to recommend it to other selectors.
Guan Hu's work "Dog Formation" was selected as a unit of concern
After watching the film, in the last few months of the opening, the film selector will return to France with the selected film, discuss all the films with other film selection colleagues, and then present the selected film list to Fumao for the final decision. A film has to go through so many procedures before it finally reaches the eyes of the art director, and each procedure tests the film's public relations ability and public relations ideas. The producer needs to let the filmmaker understand it at the beginning, so as not to misjudge the quality of the film, and the importance of strategy is self-evident.
But if the film can indeed open up the quality gap with other films of the same level, Cannes will certainly not let go of this opportunity in the end.
How did "Sauce Garden Lane" come in?
The non-competition unit is generally a commercial film with a strong topic, in which superstars from all over the world are indispensable. Cannes usually grabs the premieres of these films in order to create marketing buzz, but only if the quality is not below the bottom line.
At the premiere of "Top Gun 2" in 2021, Tom Cruise brought a group of American superstars to shine on the Cannes red carpet, and the scene of French military planes flying in a queue to pay tribute is still unforgettable.
Cannes needs these superstars to create buzz. For films of this level, some of them need to be invited by Thierry Fumao in person, but they may not be invited. In 2021, in order to bring Tom to the Cannes red carpet, Cannes provided a lot of resources, including the red carpet at the same level as the main competition film, the French military aircraft lined up to salute and so on.
"Top Gun 2" Cannes premiere
And Japan's national-level animation artist Hayao Miyazaki is beyond Fushige's reach. According to legend, since "Spirited Away", every time Miyazaki has a new film, Fukushige will take the initiative to visit, and most of the time it is rejected in the end.
This time, "Sauce Garden Lane" and "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" were shortlisted for Cannes screening, especially "Sauce Garden Lane" will also enjoy the same high-standard red carpet and exposure as the main competition unit, first of all, thanks to Zhang Ziyi's super starlight in the Chinese-speaking circle. It can be said that where she is there, there will never be a shortage of Chinese attention. On the eve of Cannes in 2023, Zhang Ziyi once rushed to France to meet with Fumao, and Fumao also took time out of his busy schedule to meet Zhang Ziyi. We don't know what the content of this meeting and conversation was, in short, Cannes chose Zhang Ziyi again, which is a win-win situation for both the film festival and the filmmaker.
Knowing the selection process and criteria of Cannes, in fact, I understand the initial question - why these films?
The so-called "doorway" is actually not difficult to understand. We also especially hope that Chinese directors, especially young directors, must find out the rules of the film festival and choose the appropriate distribution plan for the film when they sign up for their films, so that Chinese films can be noticed by the world.