From Tom Cruise to First-Time Filmmakers, Cannes Makes the Case for Movies to Survive Hard Times

Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson
·1 min read

This year’s Cannes Film Festival has taken flight from several directions at once. Tom Cruise walked the red carpet at the festival for “Top Gun: Maverick,” arriving at a lively premiere accompanied by fighter jets. In the same room where Cruise participated in a 45-minute conversation about his career this week, lesser-known films like “Rodeo” and “Corsage” screened in the Un Certain Regard section. First-time directors are surfacing in Directors’ Fortnight with films like “Funny Pages” and “Aftersun” (above) that few people would be hearing about without the festival platform.

So what’s the common thread here? In this week’s episode of Screen Talk, Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson sit down in their Cannes apartment to discuss this year’s festival and how it makes the case for movies in this very difficult market. While “Top Gun: Maverick” aims to bring commerciality back to the multiplexes, other films would be happy to get a theatrical release at all, and buyers at the festival are carefully sorting through their options.

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Kohn and Thompson also anticipate several of the films in the Official Competition section and how this year’s jury might assess their options.

The pair will record next week’s episode live from the American Pavilion at Cannes on Wednesday, May 25 at 12:30 p.m.

Listen to the full episode below.

Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous installments here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk. 

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