The austere French film festival that famously banned selfies from the red carpet has joined forces with the cell phone app that got grown men dancing the Renegade.
TikTok has become the official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, in an alliance likely to burnish the brands of both organizations.
Cannes is looking to tap into TikTok’s billion-strong user base by supplying exclusive backstage content as well as talent interviews and, yes, red carpet glamour. For TikTok, Cannes provides a reputation boost as the platform looks to position itself as a content creator.
Timed to the Cannes deal, the Bytedance-controlled company announced the launch of #TikTokShortFilm, a global in-app competition of vertical short films, between 30 seconds and 3 minutes in length. A jury will judge the entries and three awards will be handed out in Cannes at an event attended by Cannes director Thierry Fremaux. TikTok said a well-known director, to be named later, will head up the inaugural jury.
Both Cannes and TikTok should benefit from synergies resulting from the deal, particularly in the fashion space, with luxury brands likely to be lining up for the chance to combine the festival’s glam reputation with TikTok’s unbeatable reach and enviably-young demographic.
Commenting on the partnership, Fremaux said the TikTok deal was part of efforts to diversify the festival and would allow Cannes to share the magic of the festival with a “wider, much more global and just as much [of a] cinephile audience than ever before.”
Rich Waterworth, the general manager of TikTok in Europe, said the platform was looking forward to “opening up more creative possibilities for our community as they get ready to be inspired, moved and entertained, bound by a shared love of video and cinema.”
BCannes is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year and, after two years of virtual festivals and pandemic-era conditions, hopes for a return to its blow-out celebrations of years past.
Source: Hollywood
