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Like much of the world as we know it today, the Cannes Film Festival exists as an indirect result of the rise of the fascist regimes in Europe during the 1930s. Its roots date back to 1932 when the first competitive international film festival was held in Venice. In those days, the Mostra di Venezia- and chiefly its awards- was as much about the national prestige of the participating countries as it was about the films. As the decade marched on, both the official selection and the prizewinners began to noticeably favour the countries of the fascist alliance, particularly Germany and Italy.
Matters came to a head though in 1938 when Jean Renoir’ s“ La Grande Illusion” was overlooked for the festival’ s top prize- known back then as the Coppa Mussolini(“ Mussolini Cup”)- despite being the clear favourite amongst both festivalgoers and jury members. Instead, the Coppa was jointly-awarded to a two-part German film called“ Olympia”, commissioned by Joseph Goebbels to document Nazi successes at the 1938 Berlin Olympics; and“ Luciano Serra, Pilota”, made under the supervision of Il Duce’ s own son. When the results were announced, the French were of course outranged and withdrew from the festival. Both the British and American jury members also resigned in protest at the idea that politics and ideology were able to stamp all over artistic appreciation.“ La Grande Illusion”- a largely anti-war film- was subsequently banned in Germany and Italy; Goebbels himself labelling it‘ Cinematographic Enemy No. 1’.
But Venice’ s folly turned out to be Cannes’ triumph. Later that same year, a group of critics and filmmakers got together to petition the French Government to underwrite the cost of running an alternative international film festival in France- one where films could be shown and compete without bias or political censorship. Afraid of upsetting Mussolini, the French government was initially lukewarm to the idea, but the powerful lobby group wasn’ t going to be easily dissuaded. Headed by Philippe Erlanger( head of Action Artistique Française), Robert Favre Le Bret( who would become the festival’ s longest serving president), and Louis Lumière( the co-inventor of cinema), the group put intense pressure on the government, which eventually caved in and gave the event the green light.
The Festival International du Film was scheduled to kick-off on 1st September 1939, but the festival only managed its opening night before being closed down following the outbreak of World War II the following day. During the war the festival remained in hiatus, re-emerging for a second re-opening on 20th September 1946 – And thus The Cannes Film Festival was born
Today, Cannes is the most famous of all film festivals and one of the largest media events on the planet. The festival has an annual budget of around € 20m, half of which comes from the French Ministry of Culture and Communications( through the Centre National du Cinéma), with the rest from the City of Cannes, various regional authorities, and a large group of corporate sponsors. Each year more than 1,500 films from over 100 countries are submitted to be considered for a very limited number of berths in the official selection this attracts stars and starlets, famous directors, cinematographers, writers and of course the legions of fans. Careers are made and broken during the Cannes Festival, winning a prize means certain success, and directors who fail to make the grade, or producers who fail to get the funding, may disappear without trace.
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