What are the TikTokeurs doing at the Cannes Film Festival?

The unconventional collaboration between the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and the social network TikTok celebrates its 3rd year this year. For the 77th edition of the ceremony, a team of TikTokers including Enora Hope (1.5 million followers), Antton Racca (5.6 million followers), and Hugo Décrypte (6.1 million followers) will broadcast the event live to share it with their millions of followers. Cannes rolls out the red carpet for these "content creators": they are at the photocalls, the premieres, and remain in the front rows to conduct interviews with the stars. A generous welcome for a ceremony that continues to shun streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon. Indeed, the Croisette bans the competition screening of any film that has not been distributed in theaters in France, thus excluding the productions of video-on-demand platforms.

The objective of Cannes, by collaborating with the Chinese social network, is to boost cinema attendance. It is evident that TikTok has demonstrated its growing influence on the box office. For example, the film "Consent", an adaptation of the bestseller by Vanessa Springora, went viral on the social network. The trend involved filming oneself before and after watching the film. Thanks to this trend, the feature film that depicts a controlling relationship between a 50-year-old writer and a 14-year-old girl, garnered over 600,000 admissions. An impressive figure for a work on a disturbing subject. The phenomenon #Barbenheimer is another proof of TikTok's strength in the 7th art. Among others, the hashtag #OnRegardeQuoi on the social network has accumulated over 315 million views just in France. It is attached to videos that recommend movies and series to watch. According to a study conducted in 2021 by GoodQues for TikTok Entertainment, 1 out of 2 users has watched a movie because they heard about it on TikTok.

The partnership between Cannes and TikTok doesn't stop there. The third edition of #TikTokShortFilm, a major international short film competition, was launched at the beginning of this year. It is a contest where "TikTok creators are invited to express their art through videos longer than one minute" according to the official page. The creations with the most views and engagements are then submitted to a jury composed of celebrities. This jury selects 3 films in the following categories: "Grand Winner", "Best Script", and "Best Direction". Overall, the interest of the partnership would be to rejuvenate the cinematic event and make it accessible to a younger and more diverse audience. For the social network, it allows establishing a certain legitimacy as a media platform.