Read full Cannes coverage at Report From Cannes and WaxWord Cannes.
The real business in Cannes this year is going on in the port, where the yachts of Big Money are parked – French-Tunisian media financier Taraq Ben Ammar, ex-Microsoft mogul Paul Allen (who has Mick Jagger aboard) and the Isle of Man fund. Agents and producers parade in and out, paying homage and aggressively offering friendship to cash-rich newbies like Pennsylvania billionaire Norton Herrick.
The minds of Hollywood are particularly concentrated on where the money lies at a time when money is particularly scarce.
This was reflected in the high-end turnout at the IM Global-Big Reliance cocktail party, where the chairman of the Indian multibillion-dollar media giant, Ammit Khanna, found himself surrounded by new buddies from Comerica and Citibank.
Khanna recently bought about 76 percent of Stuart Ford’s international film company, IM Global, after having backed DreamWorks two years ago.
Why is he so interested in the film business? “We are interested in all businesses from a diversification point of view,” he said. “We think there’s money to be made.”
Others might have disagreed. On the floor of the film market at the Palais des Festivals, there was notably less activity than in years past.
Sony Classics co-president Tom Bernard passed through there on Monday morning – when activity usually is at fever pitch – and found the aisles were empty.
“Maybe it was the volcano, maybe it’s the economy, but a lot of buyers didn’t come,” said Bernard. “The activity I’ve noticed are the high-end wealth people being catered to by agents. Maybe it will result in more movies next year.”
A couple of acquisitions finally jolted the low-energy activity around the festival. Bernard and partner Michael Barker bought “Another Year,” Mike Leigh’s thoughtful character piece about marriage and maturity. IFC bought Xavier Dolan’s “Heartbeats” and first-time director Antoine Blossier’s thriller “Prey.”
A critical debate continues to rage over Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s "Biutiful," between those who thought it was a brilliant work and no-brainer for the Palme d’Or and others who found its intensity heavy-handed and its message overly bleak.
A handful of U.S. distributors passed on the film early, deeming it too dark for domestic audiences. So it remained a favorite for the top prize – and a tough sell for distribution.
At the party for “Blue Valentine,” where Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams (pictured at top of page) glowed after a red-carpet premiere, journalists including Eugene Hernandez of Indiewire, Jeff Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere, Pete Hammond and Steve Zeitchik of the L.A. Times continued the argument that’s been going on online. Good to know that movies still stir heated passions somewhere.
As for "Blue Valentine," trimmed by five or 10 minutes after its Sundance premiere, the drama about a marriage in the throes of collapse was already bought by the Weinstein Company and will be released at the end of December.
