How important is the Cannes film festival?
There is a difference between the Cannes Festival and the Cannes film market. The Cannes mart is very important to independent filmmakers. This is where films are financed and distributed and where they find audiences. In most industries, trade shows are where companies develop new leads and contacts and have product launches. In the film industry, marts are for closing deals, for buying and selling. As soon as a film is done, it must be brought to the market, not introduced with a slow rollout. Films cannot sit around and wait a year. What are the world’s most important film markets? The largest markets are Cannes and the November AFM in Santa Monica. Two other important markets are the Berlin Film Festival in February, which is about 70 per cent the size of the other two, and now, the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market, FILMART. FILMART is the fastest growing of the four. AFM and Cannes are mature and have full industry participation. There are a lot of regional film markets as
