CANNES, France — Shorts made on TikTok haven’t been seen on the large display screen within the Grand Théâtre Lumière simply but, however final week the video app was nonetheless accused of a Cannes fake pas: making an attempt to affect a jury’s selections.
In March, TikTok introduced that it will be an official accomplice of the Cannes Movie Pageant this yr. Thierry Frémaux, the pageant’s creative director, was quoted saying that the collaboration was “a part of a need to diversify the viewers” of the pageant. Billboards that learn “ceci n’est pas un movie, c’est un vidéo TikTok” loom over the awnings throughout the road from one of many primary film theaters right here.
TikTok additionally introduced a contest for brief movies shot on its app. Though not an official pageant occasion, the competitors had a jury headed by the Cambodian-born filmmaker Rithy Panh, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime who has been a daily presence at Cannes with movies like “The Lacking Image” and “Exile.”
However Panh stop because the jury’s president on Wednesday, he mentioned, two days earlier than the awards had been to be given out, solely to return to his position on Friday morning, hours earlier than the awards ceremony. Panh mentioned by electronic mail that he had stop as a result of TikTok had “appeared to wish to affect our determination about prize winners,” and that he returned to his submit when the corporate agreed to respect the jury’s verdict.
“Their world, it’s not the artwork world,” Panh mentioned in an interview in a while Friday afternoon, sitting on a sofa on the deck of the beachfront restaurant the place he and his 4 fellow jurors had simply given out the awards.
Whereas declining to call names, Panh mentioned some staff at TikTok had wished to pick completely different winners from the jury’s quick checklist. It was “a number of individuals from TikTok,” he mentioned. “One or two had been very aggressive, very cussed, very closed minded.”
TikTok issued an announcement that appeared to attribute any bother to bizarre disagreements in deciding on winners. “As with all inventive competitors the place the number of a winner is open to subjective interpretation, there could also be variations of creative opinion from the unbiased panel of judges,” the assertion mentioned.
Even after receiving a assure that the jury’s decisions can be honored, Panh mentioned his first intuition was to not return to the jury. However he mentioned he finally got here again for the filmmakers. Some, he added, had traveled to Cannes from as distant as Japan or New Zealand. “You simply can’t break their dream, you already know?”
The ceremony on Friday was hosted by the social media persona Terry LTAM, who requested the jurors about their experiences watching the shorts. The Sudanese filmmaker Basma Khalifa mentioned the judging course of modified her perspective on the platform. “I didn’t give TikTok sufficient credit score, I don’t assume, for the way a lot you are able to do with it,” she mentioned.
Filmmakers from 44 international locations submitted movies to the competitors, all between 30 seconds and three minutes in size. The highest prize was shared between two administrators: Mabuta Motoki, from Japan, whose movie confirmed a person meticulously constructing a wood tub, and Matej Rimanic, a 21-year-old Slovenian director who submitted a comedic black and white quick through which two individuals flirt utilizing a paper airplane. Rimanic mentioned that engaged on social media platforms had sparked his need to make motion pictures.
“I began posting movies on Vine, then I went to Instagram after which TikTok got here round, so I began posting on TikTok,” he mentioned in an interview shortly after he acquired his award, a gold-colored statuette formed like TikTok’s brand. “Now throughout this transition of me posting on movies on social media, I found my love for filmmaking.”
It was his first time at Cannes, both to attend the pageant, or to go to the town. “I hope that at some point I can come right here with my function movie,” he mentioned. “I solely make comedies as a result of the world wants extra laughter.”
