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Au Revoir, Cannes?

A veteran film producer who once benefitted from the festival “buzz” now wonders whether the circuit as we know it is truly over, a casualty of the pandemic and our streaming reality.

Cannes Closing Ceremony
Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
David T. Friendly
May 16, 2022

On a cold Utah night in February 2006, I was sitting next to Alan Arkin in the backseat of a black town car when my Blackberry began buzzing. We had just witnessed the rousing Sundance Film Festival debut of our movie Little Miss Sunshine at the Eccles Theatre. “I hear you had a tremendous screening,” Tom Rothman, then chairman of Fox, bellowed from his office in L.A. “Congratulations. We…”—meaning Fox Searchlight, the specialty division he oversaw—“better get this one,” he begged/threatened, before hanging up.