HOWZAT

3. It’s About Finding The Hot Film

“You want to get a head start on everyone else,” Binns says. “You want to know what the hot film is, and you want to nail it down for yourself and your cinemas.” Put simply, a movie and its producer arrive at a festival with or without a distribution deal. If the movie is “hot” a distributor will offer money to the movie’s producer for the rights to distribute the movie in cinemas. To do this, however, it needs the agreement of the exhibitors, who come to the festival to select the films that they believe will play most profitably in their cinemas. “We have to work out which are the films we want to play, which are the ones that are hot at that particular time,” Binns says.

The archetypal hot film is The Blair Witch Project, which was bought in 1999 by distributors Artisan for $1.1 million at the Sundance Film Festival, and subsequently went on to gross $248 million at the worldwide box office. At festivals, the distributors and exhibitors set themselves up in makeshift tents and offices, called markets. But they’d rather be doing deals at parties.

4 . Festivals Celebrate Art

Nonetheless, all festivals are primarily about the work. And the work is art. “The films you see have not been screen-tested to death, they’ve not been written by committee, nor are they going to be released by Paramount Pictures,” Tutt says. Rutter agrees: “Where else are you going to see an amazing Romanian abortion drama such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days?” he asks. “Festivals allow people to come and get excited by the type of cinema that a lot of us cherish. This year in Cannes you’ve got films by the most beloved bunch of directors. And I think it’s great that you can still have a celebration of the director, and not, which is usual, a celebration of the actor.”

5 . Festivals Celebrate Hollywood Too

“It’s always great to have a few Hollywood productions in your festival,” McGill says. “As it is great to have a few Hollywood players in town. It’s definitely an important dynamic.” The relationship between Hollywood and festivals is mutually beneficial. While one brings lustre to the other’s seemingly esoteric event, a positive critical reaction at a festival can add cachet to an otherwise corporate studio product, says Jane Wright, managing director of BBC Films.

“I remember when American Beauty premiered at Toronto,” says Wright, who is bringing Jane Campion’s Bright Star to Cannes this year. “That was a really important launch pad for that film. Even though it already had a major distributor attached it just set the film up with the audience, and with word of mouth. People just couldn’t stop talking about it.”

6 . Festivals Can Make Your Career

“Getting selected to play at a festival, especially Cannes, is heaven,” says Rebecca O’Brien, the producer of one of this year’s Cannes favourites, Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric. O’Brien, who came to Cannes in 2006 with Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (and won that year’s Palme d’Or) says that the sheer intensity of press and industry representatives makes it the ultimate career showcase. “When you’re in competition you have one day when all eyes are on your film,” she says. “You do a press conference, there’s a photocall, the press have all seen your film, as have distributors from all over the world. Your film is one of 20 films in competition, chosen from 1,600 entrants. Clearly, this is a pointer that it must be worth having a look at. As a producer, that sort of exposure is a gift.”

7 . It’s All About The Buzz

“A really good public response at a film festival gives the media permission to love a film,” Wright says. “That certainly happened this year at the Sundance Film Festival, when we brought [Armando Iannucci’s political comedy] In the Loop. We had a fantastic response and really made our mark.” The film was critically adored by the American press and was, for some, the highlight of the festival. “After that screening, we did huge sales with American distributors. It really set the film up.”

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