The Cannes film festival or ‘le Festival de Cannes’ is one of the most revered, glamorous and popular international film festivals across the world. Having originated in 1946, this festival represents one of the most respected and awaited film awards in the whole film industry, especially in the European film industry. The Cannes festival usually takes place on the ‘Palais des Festivals’ in the town of Cannes, situated in south of France.

Importance

The Cannes film festival has become one of the biggest film platforms especially for European films. The awards given out in the film festival for topping different sectors of the film industry is certainly one reason to be jealous for a co-worker in the same field. Many films also meet their premiere show at this film festival.

History

The first Cannes film festival was scheduled to start on 1st September, 1939 as the French’s fear of the Italian film festival and so it did. But the commencement of the World War II on the same month and the same year put an end to this festival. After this massive bloodshed of World War II had ended, the show resumed on 1946 in the old casino of Cannes. The first show was an immediate success and from 1947 its popularity could only increase.

In only its second year, movies from sixteen different countries took part in the festival. In 1955, the most prestigious prize of the ceremony, the Golden Palm, was introduced. Each year a jury under one person’s leadership chooses successful personnel from different sectors and awards are rewarded accordingly. Across the years the festival took many names until in 2002, it finally came to know as Festival de Cannes.

Awards distributed:

The festival introduces many awards on different sectors of movie making. The sectors can be divided into three categories such as competition, other sections and prizes given out by individual entities. The competition section is by far the most popular among all and consists of prizes such as the Golden Palm, the Grand Prize of Festival, Jury Prize, Best Actor Female, Best Actor Male, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The others section hosts prizes such as Best Feature Film and Student Films etc. There are also some other prizes in other sections.

The Cannes film festival 2010:

The Cannes festival 2010 is scheduled to be organized between 12 to 23rd May. A new category of prize called the Short Film is announced to be introduced from this year. As it is in the past years, the festival committee has already announced the head of Jury of the award ceremony. The name is Tim Burton, who is one of the new age Hollywood filmmakers who has been able to create a mid-way between art and popular movies. The festival is expected to be another big success as it has been in the past.