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It is an unhelpful piece of scheduling that makes it impossible to watch both in full, there is a temporal overlap between the Saatchi & Saatchi New Creators' Showcase and the Young Director Awards. The former finishes at 10.45, and the latter starts at 10.30... and there is a five minute walk between the two. Annoying. In practice, it is possible to see both screenings, thanks to the lengthy introductory speeches at the YDA, of which... more later. After waking with work hanging over from the night before, DAVID raced through it so he could get to the Palais and be there ahead of the New Creators' Showcase 9.00 start. He was getting a bit ahead of himself. Because the normally dependable iPhone is continuing to show some event timings in BST rather than CET... he was a whole hour early. It was a 10.00 start. Doh! An early place in the queue meant a decent seat rather than somewhere towards the back of the vast Lumière Theatre, and DAVID was in situ as the stage was occupied by one of Cannes Lions' hosts trying to whip up a bit of enthusiasm into the blurry-headed audience. Picture a children's entertainer hired to do a 15th birthday party and you'll have some idea of the surly response as he loudly exhorted the crowd to tell him if they were "having fun". Thankfully, Saatchi & Saatchi CCO Franki Goodwin had a better measure of the vibe and she built slowly to two points in her introduction that elicited audible approval. The first was to reveal that, having been on this year's Film Jury, she is feeling very ebullient about the standard of work being judged in that category. (And, let's be honest, as thrilled as the winners of the Grand Prix for 'Creative Data' will obviously be... that's the one that matters most, by a long, long way.) The second was to remind the audience of a pledge she had made, on the same stage the previous year, for her agency to work with each of the new talents unveiled by the showcase. Though they hadn't quite fully fulfilled this promise, they were close, and she repeated the pledge for those whose work was about to be shown. It was a promise that went down well. It is both merciful and unfortunate that it's not possible to show each film in full. We would be sat there a long time if they did, but you frequently find yourself itching to see the whole film after an enticing start, and it's such a treat to see them on a big screen. Presentationally, it would be good if the graphic introducing each film was less showy. The director's name dancing across a migraine-inducing white screen is hard to register. And it would make a lot of sense to have this info appear after the film. When they're brilliant, as some unquestionably are, you are desperately trying to re-read the name that was carved on your retina a few minutes earlier.
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The audience's reaction to some of the films was muted. This certainly wasn't a reflection of the quality of the work. It speaks instead to the profile of those with delegate passes... the production community, who would certainly recognise the talent on show, are largely absent because of the prohibitive cost of being able a delegate. It is hard to know exactly who is in the Palais, but there are no chance encounters inside its walls as there are in the streets outside and in the restaurants. DAVID did not bump into a single person he knows amidst the Palais audiences, and that feels telling. We'll include a full account of the films shown in due course. As soon as the Saatchi Showcase wrapped up, DAVID darted through the Cannes rain to the Olympia cinema where the Young Director Awards were underway. As DAVID entered the auditorium, François Chilot, who has been associated with these awards since time immemorial, was sat watching with the rest of the attendees, as Medb Riordan of Academy Films described the extraordinary quality of the work we were about to see. She reported that her jury had been incredibly impressed with the standard, frequently noting that it was much better than the films they remembered from the era of their own emergence. It's incredibly refreshing to hear that sentiment as we so often hear the exact opposite from industry figures.
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Before describing what happened next, it's only fair to say that the films were worth waiting for. But, wait we did. A series of difficulties that included an introductory film running without sound for around ninety seconds before whoever was being yelled at via walkie-talkie managed to stop it; a glimpse of various films being scrolled through rapidly as someone tried to reset the show on a laptop; further yelling on the walkie talkies; and another false start for reasons unknown. All punctuated by the occasional voice of François Chilot on a handheld microphone (that kept cutting out) telling us there were "technical problems". You don't say! Once the show was properly underway, we got to see the intro film again, this time with sound, and discovered that it cleverly revealed the names of the jurors. It would be better if the presentation was clearer. As with the Saatchi Showcase, it would be really helpful if the director's name was shown after as well as before each film. In the name of simplicity, DAVID would also lose the vignettes that introduced each category. They often directly followed a short film of which only a representative sample had been shown, generating confusion about what we were watching. Nonetheless, as Medb had said in her speech, the standard of the films was incredibly impressive, and - especially when we were able to see them in full - they pushed aside any reservations about the complications created by a well-meaning committee. As with the Saatchi Showcase, a full account of the winning directors and their films will be added shortly. The lunch on the Carlton Beach with Sophie Gold and jack Howard of Eleanor Films that followed was very pleasant food-wise and company-wise, but the weird practise of delivering jéroboams of Rosé with a flag-waving ceremony to tables who ordered one felt like a weird flashback to the profligacy of the past. It's quite the achievement to have a ritual that feels gauche in this most self-consciously decadent of settings. And the DJ's bizarre decision to suddenly play 'Highway to Hell' by AC/DC at ear-splitting volume felt, as Sophie said, like an apt metaphor for Cannes 2024. It was time to leave.
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