Cinnect has developed a variety of unique features to reduce friction between content buyers and sellers, with a key aim of promoting the international trade of film & TV content. Users can benefit from such features as a contract creator tool, intuitive content discovery tools and communication capabilities that can allow any project to be uploaded and close on international sales deals all within the platform.

Co-Founder & CEO, Uvrisha Patel said “We are thrilled to bring Cinnect to the international stage at the Cannes Film Festival. Our platform is designed to empower film & TV  content rights holders by providing them with unprecedented opportunities to connect with buyers and expand their reach. Cannes is the perfect setting to demonstrate the power of Cinnect and how it can transform the film licensing landscape.“

For more information about the Cinnect platform visit www.cinnect.net.

Also Read: Advice For First Time Independent Feature Filmmakers

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What’s The Film About?

“In one of the world’s most populated cities, two brothers — Nadeem and Saud — devote their lives to the quixotic effort of protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of New Delhi that has been falling from the sky at alarming rates. Amid environmental toxicity and social unrest, the ‘kite brothers’ spend day and night caring for the creatures in their makeshift avian basement hospital. Director Shaunak Sen (Cities of Sleep) explores the connection between the kites and the Muslim brothers who help them return to the skies, offering a mesmerizing chronicle of inter-species coexistence.”

Also Read: Patagonia’s Latest Documentary “Run To The Source” Explores The River Thames Like Never Before.

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That said, Cannes always feels exciting. Perhaps because it takes place in May, so it kicks off the festival season. Summer for some is marked by white men in superhero capes fighting other white men in superhero capes; for others, it is measured in an international tour of movie appreciation that travels through Colorado, Venice, Berlin, London, and New York – but it all starts in Cannes. Its early date allows Cannes to platform a lot of movies that are untested. There are no preconceived notions, no hype built up over months. Instead, most of the movies at Cannes are playing for the first time, which means it is consistently full of surprises and can be a strange mix. Films like the Oscar-winning Parasite, Ken Loach’s brutal realist I, Daniel Blake, and Todd Haynes’ luscious lesbian romance Carol all premiered at the festival, but so did The Phantom Menace, Shrek, X-Men: The Last Stand, and, most recently, Top Gun: Maverick. This means that, one night, there’s the splashy extravagance of seeing Tom Cruise walk down the red carpet while fighter jets stream across the sky leaving trails of red, white and blue, and then, later, you can see Kristen Stewart on that same red carpet talking about a movie that the LA Times described as being about a “world where physical pain has dramatically decreased, leaving individuals free to cut open their own bodies for pleasure and profit.” 

However, the fact it’s first out the gate isn’t just what makes Cannes fun to follow because Cannes’ audiences love to make their feelings known. The length of a standing ovation is often the topic of discussion at Cannes, as are boos and walkouts. In 2006, Guillermo del Toro’s spooky parable Pan’s Labyrinth received a whopping 22-minute standing ovation. This year, Baz Luhrmann’s bizarre-looking Elvis Presley biopic got 12-minutes’ worth of applause and, I mean, I love Tom Hanks but even I can’t understand what he’s trying to do in that trailer. But that’s the thrill! Nicole Kidman’s wild but ultimately forgotten southern thriller The Paperboy got 12 minutes in 2012. Michael Moore’s haunting school shooting documentary Bowling for Columbine got 13 minutes in 2002. There seems to be no logic, neither rhyme nor reason to it. Alongside the standing ovations, there are the walkouts too. This year, many in the audience walked out of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, which stars Stewart alongside French-movie royalty Lea Seydoux, and Viggo Mortensen, which isn’t Cronenberg’s first run-in with dissent at Cannes. His 1996 film Crash, adapted from the J.G. Ballard novel of the same name about a group of people who get turned on by violent car crashes, got some major heat too and inspired many walkouts. With Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg takes his place alongside Lars Von Trier whose films Antichrist and The House That Jack Built inspired walkouts, too. 

So, what else happened at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival?  Who walked out of what and which stars had to stand awkwardly for what seems like forever as a camera is forced into their face to capture their reaction while people clap? (Honestly, if you haven’t watched the footage from the 7-minute standing ovation for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood then you haven’t lived. It’s essentially performance art.) According to the critic Peter Bradshaw, this year’s festival was particularly divisive. In his round-up, he wrote that he had never “seen a Cannes like this for radical disagreement among critics on almost every single title”. So, where to begin? 

The festival is divided into three sections: ‘In Competition’; ‘Un Certain Regard’, which highlights avant-garde filmmaking; and ‘Out of Completion’, which is essentially your big-budget stuff looking for a boost. The films playing In Competition are vying for the Palme d’Or, an award voted for by a jury made up of people from the industry, that counts amongst its winners Von Trier’s depressing musical Dancer in the Dark, Michael Moore’s Iraq war exposé Fahrenheit 9/11,  Jane Campion’s feminist period drama The Piano, and Scorsese’s career-defining Taxi Driver. Most recently, Julia Ducournau became the second woman to win the top prize, after Campion, with her body-horror-hit Titane at last year’s festival. This year, it went to Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness. Described by the BBC as “a frontal assault on the super-rich, and on the capitalist system in general” the film “has enough rage and riotous abandon to compensate for its lack of subtlety”. Triangle of Sadness is Östland’s second Palme d’Or win after The Square, a biting satire of art and charity which took the award back in 2017.

Elsewhere, one of the big stories was Clare Denis’ adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel, The Stars at Noon, which marks the filmmaker’s second English-language feature after 2018’s High Life. Denis is no stranger to Cannes and is, perhaps, one of France’s most interesting filmmakers. Her previous features have been known for their slow, slight brilliance, and she has attached great French actors such as Isabelle Huppert, who starred in Denis’ 2009 civil war drama White Material, and Juliette Binoche who gave a career-best performance in the sweet and existential Let the Sunshine In. As for The Stars at Noon, its actors are more up-and-coming than established. It sees relative newbie Joe Alwyn stepping into shoes previously meant for Taron Egerton (who had stepped in to replace Robert Pattinson before dropping out himself) and ingenue-of-the-moment Margaret Qualley starring as lovers. The BBC called it “beautifully made” and Indiewire described it as a “sweaty romantic thriller about two white foreigners who fall in love (or at least fuck a lot) against the background of Central American political tensions” with the film ultimately feeling like “a cryptic and carnal search for a way out of purgatory.” Variety praised Qualley’s performance as “tremendous” but others felt the film lacked heat. Though I have sworn off Twitter recently in an attempt to actually enjoy my life, it seemed to cause quite a stir online with one user calling The Stars at Noon a “tragedy” and another claiming it was “laughably un-erotic”. Still, it won the Grand Prix (essentially, second place after the Palme d’Or!).

One thing it seems most people can agree on is Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave. The Korean filmmaker’s past works include the revenge thriller Oldboy, the brittle family drama Stoker, and the stylish erotic thriller The Handmaiden which premiered at Cannes in 2016. Decision to Leave is a crime procedural that becomes a romantic drama as a top detective falls for the wife of the man whose murder he is investigating. If it sounds like a corny premise, all accounts suggest that Park does nothing conventional with the material, with Variety calling the film a cool saunter through an “immaculately intricate labyrinth”. Park also took home the Best Director prize and it seems this is one of the few Jury decisions that everyone can get on board with. 

The controversial true-crime thriller Holy Spider took home an award for its leading actress Zar Emir-Ebrahimi who plays an investigative journalist trying to uncover the truth about a serial killer who is hunting sex workers. The film is based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, known as “The Spider Killer”, who killed sixteen women between 2000 and 2001. Hanaei became a quasi-hero for the religious right in Iran at the time who felt he was “cleansing” the city of Mashad, and he even received help from the police force for doing what was seen by some as God’s work. The film, which is set in Iran, wasn’t able to film there due to the subject and its inclusion of substantial nudity and was filmed in Jordan instead. It has been called, by some, a slick and enticing thriller in the vein of David Fincher’s Zodiac. Others have criticised Holy Spider for “Hollywood-ising” the tragic deaths of these women who, according to The Guardian, don’t receive a huge amount of screen time. The premiere was protested too by a feminist collective who took to the red carpet and set off plumes of black smoke whilst holding up a list of 129 women’s names. The group indicated that these names were a list of the “129 feminicides in France since the last Cannes festival” – ‘feminicide’ being a phrase defined in the late seventies as the intentional killing of women and girls because they are female. 

Last year, Titane walked out of Cannes with huge buzz and so did The Worst Person in the World, both of which went on to receive some major award nominations. This year it seems slightly harder to see those sure-fire successes (outside of Decision to Leave which, if it’s anything like Park’s previous movies, will do well at the arthouse box office). Denis’s movies are often divisive (High Life featured a “fuck box” for Christ’s sake!) and Östland’s Triangle of Sadness will likely have its fans, too (I imagine I will be one of them if just for a shirtless Harris Dickinson alone…). But what does seem clear is that the stage is set to see how these movies fare over the next few months. They’ll all be sure to pop up elsewhere and the discussion around them will grow (and, undoubtedly, become infuriating at points) but that is the thrill of festival season. Not to mention there are still plenty of movies that have yet to enter the ring. There’s Noah Baumbach’s reteaming with Greta Gerwig in White Noise, Sebastian Lelio’s period drama The Wonder which stars Florence Pugh, Joanna Hogg’s as-yet-untitled ghost movie, and two (TWO!) Harry Styles movies, one of which is said to feature a fair amount of sex and nudity. All of which are likely to show up on the festival circuit in the next few months. So, strap in folks! It’s likely to be a bumpy ride. 

Also Read: The History of the Cannes Film Festival

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The First Cannes

Cannes got it’s start in 1938, as direct competition to the Venice Film Festival, which at the time had heavy fascist leanings. At the 1938 festival, the jurors were overruled to award an Italian war film produced by Mussolini’s son and a German documentary about the 1936 Olympics, produced in association with Nazi Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, despite rules meaning documentaries weren’t eligible. In protest, French, American and British jurors resigned. On May 1st 1939, the city of Cannes was chosen to host the festival.

The opening gala took place on August 31st, with a contemporary Hollywood screening of the American The Hunchback of Notre Dame. However, the next day, Germany invaded Poland, suspending the festival. On the 3rd of September, France and the UK declared war on Germany, beginning the Second World War, as a result, the festival was cancelled. When it finally relaunched after the war in 1946, it saw films from 21 different countries for two weeks.

The Rise To Fame

During the early years, the festival attracted attention with high profile stars and the resulting scandals, like affairs. Films from directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman helped to establish its credibility and prestige, while the prestige of these films and directors grew due to their association. As the artistic side grew, the festival began to hand out prizes, with annually changing juries handing out the awards each year. The Special Jury Prize was awarded for the first time in 1954, and the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize, the following year. Award winners at Cannes often go on to at least awards conversation, with films like Parasite and Pulp Fiction getting a lot of attention.

In 1957, Dolores del Rio was the first female member of the jury. Despite the reputation, some films well regarded films, like Hiroshima, My Love, were excluded from the festival for diplomatic reasons. 1962 saw the introduction of International Critic’s week, which focused on director’s debuts and sophomore efforts, rather than commercial films. The festival was the subject of several protests in 1968, both in support of students and labour on strike in France, as well as protesting the eviction of the president of the Cinémathèque Française, one of the largest film archives in the world.

Marché Du Film

Over the next few decades, many changes would see diplomatic pressures reduced, helping some filmmakers overcome censorship in their own countries. In the 2000s, the festival focused on technological advancements in films, with Cannes Classics, restorations of historical films, debuted in 2004.

Aside from the prestige of the event, one of the other great things about Cannes is the Marché Du Film or Film Market. Responsible for screening and selling thousands of movies each year, the market has run since 1956. Like the festival itself, the market has embraced new technologies. Perhaps most essential of these is Cinando, a massive database, that allows filmmakers to show their films to and chat with distributors. The 2020 edition the festival was conducted virtually, because of the pandemic.

Also Read: Oscars: Ranking The Best Picture Winners of The Last Decade

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In Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winning Parasite, those organisms are the Kim family. A group who, struck by misfortune and lack of wealth, try to make a living from what they can in their semi-basement apartment. They fold the pizza boxes for a local restaurant, use the WIFI of the person who lives above them, they risk their own health to take advantage of local fumigation via their open windows, and they have to watch each night as drunk men piss outside those same windows. So when an opportunity to tutor the daughter of the wealthy Park family befalls the son of the family, Ki-Woo (played with hope and grit by Choi Woo-shik) a plan emerges. 

Ki-Woo likes plans, to know the next step, to already have his counteraction prepared. As it becomes clear the youngest Park child needs an art tutor, he suddenly ‘remembers’ someone he’s heard of and thus, his sister, Ki-jeong (a deftly cool and calm Park So-dam), takes up the mantle of Jessica – an artistic genius and expert in art therapy who studied in the USA. Soon, there appear to be roles for the entire family and they set about making it happen. Utilising titbits of information they hear from the family they find ways to oust the driver and the housekeeper, leaving room for Ki-teak (Song Kang-ho) and Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) to take over. Their infiltration of the Park family is ruthless and smooth.

What then of their host, the Park family? The mother, Yeon-gyo (played sweetly by Cho Yeo-jeong) whose ignorance to the world outside is unwittingly antagonistic and her maternal anxiety only seems to stretch to her youngest son. The father, Dong-ik, the CEO of an IT company, who brings home the money and wins over his son with gifts. They are two people who, as the film twists and writhes into unexpected places, become more grotesque as their out-of-touch air wrestles with their lack of empathy for others. As for their children, Da-song, is a seemingly wild, uncontrollable child while Da-hye is a shy, self-conscious teen, aware of the lack of attention she gets from her parents and thus finds romantic entanglements with all her tutors. 

The Parks live in an enviable mansion mostly protected from prying eyes by tall trees in their garden. The suave house, filled with motion sensors, cool chrome finishes, and Voss Water, is the stage on which this symbiotic relationship plays out. The Kim’s infiltrate and live off the Parks and the Parks, ignorant to the toils of the working classes, are none the wiser. 

To talk too much more about the film’s plot would rob the viewer of experiencing its wild ride (and it is wild). Instead, what is more, beneficial is thinking about Parasite has to say, with class strategically centred in this astute and pointed story of a wide and cavernous divide. But, make no mistake, the evaluation of Parasite as class warfare is not this critic engaging with the film’s subtilties, far from it. The film wears its anti-capitalist message on its sleeve, open and in plain sight with no chance you could miss it. That is, in fact, one of its strongest qualities: its unabashed commitment to its thesis. The world of the film is the same as the world we live in, the rich find it hard to see the poverty for the trees that they surround their massive houses with. Global warming leads to hotter summers for those beach getaways and rising house prices mean a stronger investment in property and likely more needy tenants to rent to.

It is not the only film to grapple with this divide that simply cannot be ignored. In a piece for Vulture, critic Alison Willmore wrote, “lass rage on the big screen provides a reflection of the particular despair and frustration underscoring our real-world present, where the divide between security and anxiety, both here and abroad, is ever more cavernous.” Willmore placed Parasite alongside 2019’s slew of films that examined that class gap including Ready or Not, Hustlers, Knives Out, and more. Does this mean things are changing?

Parasites notably weaken their host, but when it comes to class nothing seems to be budging, nobody appears any frailer. The rich keep getting richer, the money builds up as billionaires see tax decreases and off-shore accounts continue to exist. But the working classes see none of that dough, it isn’t put back into the economy unless you count the poor wages paid for zero-hour contracts or casual work. And if you don’t like it? There’s a line of hundreds just like you, in need of work, lining up around the block to survive. If there were a job opening ‘500 university graduates would go for it’, Ki-Taek says, highlighting the grim prospects that a lot of young people know all too well. 

Bong Joon-ho’s social commentary flick is made more effective through the stylish and gripping way the story unfolds. It’s dark, funny, clever, surprising, and I’m sure I could use almost every adjective in my lexicon. I could go on for hours about the way class and politics come into play but I won’t. All I’ll say is this: parasites don’t intend to harm their host, that is a by-product of the way in which they exist. They want, as all creatures do, to live. 

Rating: (5 / 5)

Parasite is being distributed by Curzon in the UK and will be in cinemas 7^th February 2020.

Also Read: The Anatomy of a Christopher Nolan Film

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