Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival is held annually and is considered the most prestigious film festival in the world. It actually is a festival that excludes the public, it is aimed at the film industry and is an opportunity to launch films, publicize films and doubles as a forum for producers and broadcasters to make deals. The public gets to watch the stars go by, and watch the various publicity stunts that are intended to plug a movie. The modern festival features a committee of industry professional who award various prizes to movies including the prestigious Palme D'Or. The festival evolved after film makers sought an alternative to the Venice film festival, which in the pre-war (World War II) years was seen as having a political bias- the final straw was when a French film was tipped to win but instead the grand prize was jointly-awarded to a German film called Olympia (produced in association with Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda), and Italy's Luciano Serra, Pilota, made by Mussolini's own son. Alternative venues such as Biarritz were considered but it was Cannes that was chosen mainly because it agreed to build a venue dedicated to the event. The official beginning to the film festival was 1946, but it was actually 1939 that the first festival was supposed to commence, however after an opening night the event was cancelled due to a larger event called World War II. Over the years the Festival was sometimes cancelled due to budgetary problems but it always emerged bigger and better. It was in 1954 that two defining moments occurred - one was the incorporation of a palm leaf into the festival awards and the second was when French starlet Simone Sylvia posed topless on the beach beside Robert Michum during a photocall. Cannes would forever afterwards be associated as the sexiest of the worlds film festivals. The later presence of a bikini clad Bridgette Bardot cemented this image.
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