A Journey Through the Cannes Film Festival
Sir Peter Jackson’s first visit to the Cannes Film Festival was an unexpected one. He arrived at the Palais de Festivals to collect his accreditation, only to be immediately asked to leave. The reason? He was wearing shorts. At the time, he was in town with his low-budget film Bad Taste, a comedy horror that he and his friends made on Sundays. “I had no experience of the film industry,” he recalls. “These were amateur films, made by me and my mates on Sundays.”
Despite this initial setback, the trip to Cannes in 1987 changed his life. Bad Taste found its way into America, marking a turning point for Jackson. Before that, he had been working as a photo engraver in Wellington. “I left New Zealand as a photo engraver, came to Cannes and returned to New Zealand as a filmmaker,” he says.
In 2001, Jackson returned to Cannes with a 20-minute show reel of The Lord of the Rings, which at the time was seen by many in the industry as an absurdly expensive folly. This year, he received an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work. However, his work is far from over. As he mentioned during a packed festival theatre event, he has been spending his downtime between ceremonies working on the script for his long-awaited Tintin film.
Jackson produced Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, released in 2011, as part of a two-picture pact. “The deal was that Steven directs one and I direct another,” he said. “Fifteen years later, I haven’t made mine. I feel very awkward about that.”
During his on-stage interview, which began with a spontaneous standing ovation, Jackson shared stories from behind the scenes, including giving a young Kate Winslet her first screen kiss in Heavenly Creatures (1994) and signing up Fay Wray to appear as an old woman in his version of King Kong. He also spoke about his views on AI in filmmaking. His appearance was a highlight of the first few days of the festival, especially given the lack of Hollywood stars on the red carpet and the lukewarm reviews for the opening night film, The Electric Kiss, a French comedy set among carnival workers in the 1920s.
Festival Lineup and Industry Challenges
Festival openers are rarely heavy hitters, so it’s no surprise that the opening film didn’t generate much buzz. The big names in arthouse cinema will start to arrive over the weekend. This year’s lineup includes new films from Iranian master Asghar Farhadi, Polish multiple Oscar nominee Pawel Pawlikowski, Japanese regulars Hirokazu Kore’eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Romanian director Radu Jude, whose Diary of a Chambermaid is set in France and is expected to tackle class exploitation and bourgeois hypocrisy.
Pedro Almodóvar, the ageing wild child of Spanish cinema, will be on the Croisette later in the week with Bitter Christmas. American cinema is represented by filmmakers beyond Hollywood, including Ira Sachs with an AIDS drama starring Rami Malek, Steven Soderbergh’s documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview, and James Gray’s Paper Tiger, about two American brothers entangled with the Russian mafia.
However, nothing here matches the sheer showbiz impact of a new Top Gun or Mission Impossible. Before the program was announced, there was speculation that it might include Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey or Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. But The Odyssey remains unfinished, and Spielberg is reportedly guarding the film’s surprise ending.
Studios have been hesitant to launch their films at Cannes due to the risk of harsh criticism. No film can recover from a bad review. Venice, with its position at the start of the awards season, is often a better bet. However, Cannes offers the advantage of first discovery. “The studios need to understand that many films began their careers in Cannes before heading off on a glorious path to the Oscars,” said festival director Thierry Fremaux when unveiling his program. In 2024, it was Cannes’s recognition that helped the American independent film Anora achieve Oscar success.
The high cost of launching a film at Cannes is another deterrent. Expenses can run into seven figures, with high-end costs three times what they were before the pandemic. Many companies have less to spend. Just days before the festival began, agencies handling luxury apartments were slashing rental rates to match those of single flats. Any rent was better than none.
Passion for Cinema Endures
Despite these challenges, the enthusiasm for cinema itself remains undimmed. As Jackson reflected on his filmmaking career, each film seemed to come alive again in his discussion, even those that weren’t successful.
“A lot of people don’t like The Hobbit,” he said, “But I actually like it. Every film I make I like because ultimately, the films I make are for me. At the very end of the day, I don’t make films for an audience. I don’t try to guess what someone else would want to see.” Judging by the reactions, however, everyone wants to see Tintin.
