How does hosting a gigantic film festival affect a city? 62 years of screening controversial movies from all over the world, sometimes throwing attention onto social injustices and causing stormy debates - does all this create a generation of curious citizens, eager to embrace the world and dive into new ideas? Apparently not. During the years of the rising popularity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Cannes was one of the cities in France where he got the biggest support. And Le Pen is maybe not the guy you connect with an eagerness to embrace the world and all of its citizens.

A couple of minutes walk from the buzz around the red carpet, the streets of Cannes are calm, and the only things reminding you of the world’s most famous film festival are the big Brad Pitt posters on the bus stops. Excited about all the fantastic films I was about to see, I asked the guy in the supermarket what films he was looking forward to. “Oh”, he said, “Has the festival started already? Well, I don’t have time to see any films. I have to work. Since there are so many people here for the festival, we have to stay open until two in the morning”.

In the late 19th century, during the birth of cinema, films were shown wherever they could possibly attract the biggest audiences. The screenings of the Cannes film festival also attract huge crowds, but the audiences are only those with free press passes and the privilege of having time to see the films.

”In its sixty years of history, the Festival de Cannes has never ceased to live with its day”, says Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate. He might be right about that, but, more precisely, whose day is he referring to?

Moa Geistrand