With its lavish parties and glamorous premieres, the Festival de Cannes has gained quite a reputation since its launch in 1946. Originally intended to attract a few extra tourists to the small seaside town, it has since become the world’s biggest celebration of cinema, attracting scores of Hollywood’s leading stars. Arriving en masse, the actors and actresses spend their days at press conferences, junkets and photo shoots and their evenings at swanky parties on the beach. But there is another side to the film festival that puts a good spin on all that champagne swilling and self-promotion — every year it raises heaps of cash for charity.
Leading the way is amfAR’s Cinema Against Aids event, which is now in its 17th year. The black-tie event has become a firm fixture on the Cannes party circuit ever since Elizabeth Taylor took to the stage in 1993 to host the organization’s first ever auction and dinner during the festival. In recent years Sharon Stone has taken up the post and in 2009, the actress and AIDS campaigner helped to raise $4.5 million for the organization’s lifesaving AIDS research.
This year, the Hollywood heavyweights will be summoned once again to the glamorous Hotel du Cap in Antibes for a cocktail party, dinner and auction to take place on May 20. And there’s sure to be some surprises! At last year’s event, Sharon Stone cajoled Twilight‘s Robert Pattinson into auctioning off kisses, well two kisses to be exact (it started off with the promise of a solitary peck on the cheek for a female fan but Stone can be quite persuasive) for a staggering $28,000 per kiss. Josh Hartnett offered to strip (strangely no-takers) and Bill Clinton auctioned off his personal saxophone for a staggering $130,000 (see above).
Due to Stone’s filming commitments in Thailand, she will be handing over the reigns to Scottish actor and loyal amfAR supporter, Alan Cumming this year while celebs such as Emily Blunt, Diane Kruger, Kirsten Dunst, Marion Cotillard and Benicio Del Toro will be in the audience, with Mary J. Blige performing. Well, no one said philanthropy couldn’t be fun, right? “This year’s Cinema Against AIDS Cannes will be as star-studded as ever and will be filled with many exciting surprises,” amfAR’s CEO Kevin Robert Frost tells Tonic. “We are on track to raise significant funds for our life-saving AIDS research programs, thanks largely to the support of our sponsors, our event chairs and the international film community.”
Other do-gooder party planners at the festival include Vanity Fair’s editor Graydon Carter. In general terms, the hotter the party, the harder it is to get into which means that an invite to Carter’s annual bash comes with its own fire extinguisher — it’s that hot. This year, the editor who’s joining forces with Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini for the May 15 soiree, decided to give a pair of tickets away for charity. Sold on Charitybuzz, the lot also includes a pair of tickets to the premiere after party of Blue Valentine, (starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) and sold last week for approximately $15,000. Thanks to Carter and The Weinstein Company, the Center for the Advancement of Women, a charity dedicated to research-based education and advocacy for women just got a hefty donation.
From a business point of view, Cannes is all about selling and buying new films. But director Martin Scorsese takes his love of cinema to a whole new level with The Film Foundation, his nonprofit organization, which restores old films to their former glory. Thanks to donations from companies such as the Gucci group, the veteran director has been able to digitally restore some of Italy’s most treasured film classics. The latest, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) will premiere in Cannes on May 14 and will be celebrated at the Vanity Fair/Gucci party the following night.
It’s a passion close to the heart of Gucci’s Frida Giannini who can’t wait to honor her friend Scorsese at the party. “We are proud to support the work of Martin Scorsese and The Film Foundation to keep these vibrant, timeless films alive,” she said in a statement. “Through preservation, the legacy of visionary filmmakers like Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini can continue to inspire us, as well as future generations.” To date, the luxury fashion house has donated a cool $1.5 million to the foundation.
And it isn’t just on the festival party circuit that good work can be seen in full swing. This year for the first time ever, Cannes will distribute its first unofficial gay award, called the Queer Palm in recognition of a film’s contribution to gay or transgender themes, reports Screen Daily. An independent group came up with the idea after they were inspired by other festivals in Europe such as the Berlin Film Festival and Venice Film Festival where gay themes are celebrated with their own awards. The award will be debuted on May 22 at a special ceremony.
Other hot, charitable events during the 12-day extravaganza include a fundraiser hosted by Bono to raise money for Haiti and the BuyaMovieRole auction which will see people bidding on everything from film set visits and premiere tickets — all in the name of charity, of course.
So yes Cannes can be frivolous and superficial with the endless publicity stunts and who-wore-what headlines but it’s also an amazing excuse to put all that celebrity power to some good and that’s something worth raising a glass of bubbly to.
Photos by Clare and Dave via Flickr, photo by Tony Barson/WireImage, photo courtesy of the Festival de Cannes.
