9 Entertaining Cannes Film Festival Facts You Might Not Know

What is the Cannes festival? Cannes Film Festival is one of the oldest and most prestigious film festivals in the world. It is a popular event that features many celebrities from all over the world. 

The Cannes film festival location: It is a yearly film festival that is held in France at the Palais des Festivals et des Congres, in the resort town of Cannes in order to feature new movies and documentaries from various countries. It is considered as one of the events to celebrate the art of cinema. You can find many of your favorite celebrities with stunning and most daring dresses that are designed by some of the best red carpet fashion designers! 

But what you usually see on screen might not be what it is in actual life. Do you want to learn some Cannes film festival fun facts? We are here to reveal the truth! This article explains 9 interesting Cannes film festival facts!

1) Palme d’Or(“Golden Palm”) is the most prestigious award at Cannes. It is given out to feature the best film. One of the interesting facts is that Woody Allen has never participated in the competition of Palme d’Or. He once said that he would only take part only if all the directors make films on the same topic. However, his films have repeatedly opened the Cannes Festival. 

2)  This is one of the most interesting Cannes film festival facts. Jean-Gabriel Domergue designed the first Cannes Festival poster in 1939, but however the festival was cancelled due to the breaking out of World War 2 and later, the event was conducted on September 20, 1946. It was considered the first great international cultural event in the post-war period. The interesting thing, Jean Gabriel is the cousin of Toulouse-Lautrec who is a popular French painter and illustrator. 

3) The length of the most famous red carpet is usually 60 meters which is nearly 197 feet. Every single day before each official screening of a film in competition, a new carpet is laid. It means each day, 180 meters of carpet are used. 

4) The Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival was introduced in 1955. It was designed with 19 gold leaves in 18-carat gold and it is worth about 20.000 Euros. 

5) Cannes film festival history: The origin of the Cannes Film Festival dates back to 1939. Jean Zay, education minister of France was the first to come up with the idea of the global film festival. It was introduced as a rival to the Venice Festival which was the only international film festival at that time.

6) In the last few years, people are experiencing something called “Heelgate” in the Cannes film festival. Several female attendees were stopped from attending the festival just because they were wearing flat soled shoes instead of high heels.

7) In the parallel section, other alternative programs dedicated to discovering other aspects of cinema include, International Critics Week and Director’s Fortnight, ACID, and Tous les Cinémas du Monde.

8) Approximately, the budget of the whole Cannes film festival is €20 million. Half of the amount is received from public funding and the other half is collected from the official partners and group contribution. 

9) You can find more than 200,000 actors, directors, agents, producers, and fans attending the Cannes film festival each year.