When we think of Cannes Film Festival we think of movie stars walking the red carpet accompanied by the constant click of camera shutters and flashing lights.

However Cannes, now in it’s 70^th year, has long been the place where international distribution deals get made. It remains the largest film marketing gathering in the world. From the art house films of Merchant Ivory to the glitz and exploitation of Cannon movies it’s at Cannes that determines whether or not they have a product distributors think will sell.

You may have noted that Merchant Ivory Productions and Cannon Films are either gone (Cannon) or on life support (Merchant Ivory), even though both had fairly long runs of small, but profitable films. Merchant Ivory (founded in 1962) peaked in the mid-1990s, but the final nail in their coffin came in 2005 with the death of producer Ismail Merchant, the legendary (according to some) swindler who sold the high-brow pictures created by director James Ivory.

Founded in the U.S in 1967, but taken over by Israeli businessmen Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in 1975, Cannon films never aspired to cultivate the attention of high-brow tastes. They produced cheap exploitation films (making stars out of Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris in the process) betting that you can never go wrong appealing to the lowest common denominator. Most of their films, like Merchant Ivory’s Oscar bait, required international presales to leverage bridge financing for their next project. Hence for 12 days every May Merchant and Globus could be found in Cannes, along with hundreds of other producers and production companies, hawking their wares.

Their eventual downfall underscores the Hollywood saying, “You’re only as good as your last movie.” No matter how many successes they had Merchant and Globus never stopped, and never could afford to stop hustling.

What’s changed for Cannes in the 21^st century, only the names.

Albeit producers today also tend to be less 'colourful’ than Ismail Merchant or Menahem Globus when it comes to pitching their latest opus, although the films being pitched are anything but. The rules for small productions are largely the same; find a market for your existing film, amongst hundreds of potential distributors. And the market has never been larger, especially with the growth of alternative (and lower cost) distribution through online streaming. As well, the market has never been more diverse, with distributors from Northern Europe, South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and everything in between vying for product.

Once that’s done, and hopefully your film turns a profit for everyone involved, producers, whether it’s a $100 million USD blockbuster or a $70 'found footage’ horror movie, use a successful track record to go on to their next project. Returning to Cannes the following year to sell their idea again, this time to the person holding the purse strings.

Sometimes it’s a bank, sometimes it’s a Wall Street underwriter and sometimes it’s a group of dentists looking for a vanity investment (or just a little glamour).

Cannes for both film and television (many movies are sold to TV distributors) is the place where everyone comes together to find money and to make money.

This year approximately 1500 production companies and 3200 independent producers from over a 100 countries will be pitching deals (either finance or distribution) for over 5,000 films.

Clearly the vast majority of these latter day Sam Goldwynns follow the Cannon model much more than the Merchant Ivory one. Yes a few small movies do manage to attract 'name’ actors and compete with studio fare for top awards. But more often than not what’s on sale at Marche de Filme (The Film Market, a large complex of conference rooms, galleries and small auditoriums created solely for the purposes of selling movies) are titles like Zombie Cheerleaders and Mega Shark. There is no real bar to entry, anyone with a film (or idea for a film) who has a few thousands dollars to spare for a booth at the market can join the film free for all.

The festival in fact, is not known for being the launching pad of films that strike box office gold. You’d have to go all the way back to 1989’s Sex Lies and Videotape to find a low budget movie (winner of that year’s Palme d’Or) that went on to do a respectable $25 million USD domestically.

Many high budget 'art’ films have premiered at Cannes, and likewise, very few have done very well financially, nor has a win at Cannes translated to a win at the Academy Awards (which does give films a box office boost).

No Cannes ultimately is about making connections and getting into and staying in the business of low budget filmmaking.

Experienced producers say that despite the abundance of A-listers, super yachts and exclusive parties, novice producers with a product to sell, or even just a pitch for an idea, can (and do) make deals at Cannes.

There are sponsored happy hours and brunches for filmmakers and producers to mingle, Cannes veterans say the first week of the festival is when the deals are made and the second week is for gawking at movie stars.

For films actually being screened at Cannes (a very small minority) a little independent film, looking for perhaps a distribution agreement for Australia, or maybe a cable deal in Ecuador, may sometimes get good word of mouth and find themselves picked up by an American company like Focus Features or Fox Searchlight.

Although extremely rare, it’s not unheard of, and nobodies who slunk into Cannes under the radar suddenly find themselves being chased down the Croisette by agents and big name producers.

Even without a film in competition, those adept at networking can, with some persistence, and a little luck, leverage a deal for themselves just for being seen talking to the right producer.

Or be like the late Ismail Merchant, who it was often said, was an accomplished chef, and prepared gourmet meals for his deal partners, charming them all the while and leaving them, literally, with a pleasant taste in their mouths.

 

World box office by the numbers (in $USD):
North America (U.S/Canada) – $10.4 billion
China – $4.8 billion
Japan – $2 billion
France – $1.8 billion
U.K – $1.7 billion
India – $1.7 billion
South Korea – $1.6 billion
Germany – $1.3 billion
Russia – $1.2 billion
Australia – $1 billion

(source Statista)