Can Cannes Help California Get Its Groove Back?

As you walk up The Croisette toward the Palais, there’s a long, winding series of tents overlooking the yachts anchored in the Bay of Cannes. Atop each tent is a flag representing the country that hopes to impress the producers, financiers and executives gathering at Cannes on the hunt for locations (and most importantly, financial incentives) for their next projects.

Near the end of these tents is the American Pavilion, which historically has been a place for the world’s biggest exporter of entertainment to meet with international guests, and for individual U.S. states to tout their tax incentives and facilities.

New York had its own dedicated day in the early 2000s, but never before had California made a concerted effort to court the Cannes crowd. After all, Los Angeles has long been the most influential city on earth when it comes to entertainment, an entire town built around the movie and TV business. But after years of production shifting to competing states and competing countries, California finally came to Cannes to make the case for regaining some of the ground it’s lost.

“Post the fires and the strikes, L.A. wants to get the message out that we are open for business,” says Julie Sisk, founder and president of the American Pavilion and who conceived of the idea for California Day, held on May 15. The California Film Commission and Visit California partnered on the day at the Pavilion, which is owned by THR parent company PMC.

There were California wines to pair with sushi. See’s Candies came on as a sponsor, while there was a bus photo booth and a re-creation of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But most importantly, there were impassioned panel discussions onstage, as well as private debates offstage about the pain and gain of filming in California. One refrain: Production was once so integral to the fabric of Los Angeles that Californians never thought it could disappear. Perhaps they got complacent.

There is prevailing wisdom that it’s prohibitively expensive to shoot in L.A. And the common belief is that even after California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled plans last year to double the state’s cap for the film and TV tax incentive from $330 million to $750 million a year, this bucket will be quickly depleted.

One indie director speculated to THR that just a few studio movies will eat up the credit every year, while one producer guessed that about just 10 films get that credit. Neither is true — and this confusion illustrates California’s perception problem, even among filmmakers who would like to shoot there. (For the record, 51 films have been approved this year for an incentive, most of them independent productions, along with a few studio features.)

“This budget increase will mean we can bring in many more projects and not have to turn away qualified productions due to lack of funding. There are also two companion bills making their way through the California legislature that seek programmatic changes,” says Colleen Bell, California Film Commissioner.

On one panel at California Day, writer and producer Michal Zebede acknowledged that shooting in Los Angeles is expensive but noted there are workarounds. On her 2020 series Party of Five, some filming took place in California in places such as Palm Springs or Santa Clarita, which had their own local incentives and less expensive permits. The crew would simply commute to work every day from L.A. “You end up offsetting some costs,” Zebede noted. “If you’re going to shoot in Atlanta, where we almost shot the show, then we would’ve had to fly cast and lodge cast first class.”

Producer Jonathan King, whose credits include best picture winners Spotlight and Green Book, noted on a different panel that he has not been able to film extensively in Los Angeles since 20 years ago on Dreamgirls, but hopes that something will change, perhaps with a little help from Jon Voight, one of President Donald Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, who earlier this month released a much-talked-about proposal for spurring production in the U.S.

King has read the plan and said he agrees with 95 percent of it, in particular ideas of federal incentives that can be stacked on top of state incentives, as well as co-production agreements with other nations. He would also like to see the conversation about filmmaking reframed to note that, in many ways, it’s manufacturing a product.

“We’ve allowed the idea [to proliferate] that Hollywood is part of the media elite and making movies is an elite cultural activity,” King said. “When I’m shooting a movie, I’m wearing construction boots and probably a neon orange safety vest, because we are manufacturing something.”

Added My Dead Friend Zoe producer Ray Maiello: “As they do in all the European countries, we should support film as a cultural output.”

Producer Jon Kilik, known for his work with Spike Lee and Oliver Stone, noted that New York is likely the most expensive place to film in the world, yet, “New York and New Jersey have not only figured out the rebate, they’ve also incentivized the studios,” pointing to New Jersey’s upcoming $900 million Netflix complex.

As for Pavilion boss Sisk, she sees her role as being agnostic when it comes to different U.S. states. Says the Cannes veteran: “There isn’t a United States Film Commission, so we sometimes step in and fill that role.”

Summing up the mood of the day, film comissioner Bell notes: “There was a lot of enthusiasm and engagement at California Day at the American Pavilion. The California Dream felt alive in Cannes — a desire among so many filmmakers to shoot their first project or subsequent projects in our state.”