Brut, the digital media startup that became the Cannes Film Festival’s media partner this year, covered the 75th edition with 1,200 videos that were watched by 220 million people around the world.
The company hosted the Cannes Creators Connection, an initiative that brought a flurry of content creators and social media stars to the festival for the first time with the aim of building bridges with the film community.
On top of the 220 million people who watched Cannes-related content on Brut’s different platforms, an estimated 150,000 people watched the videos of content creators at the festival with Brut. Creators on the ground included Adam Waheed and Liza Koshy from the U.S, Casey Neistat from the U.K, Ashish Chanchlani from India, and Lena Situation and Squeezie from France.
“Our first edition of the Cannes Creators Connection allowed us to set up meetings between filmmakers and content creators; for instance Lena Situation met Baz Luhrmann (…) and we hope that we’ll soon be able to see deals and role offers come out of these great meetings,” said Samuel Morin, who spearheaded the initiative for Brut. Morin said some collaborations between content creators will also likely emerge from the festival, pointing to a potential partnership between Waheed and Chanchlani.
Some of the most watched content on Brut included exclusive interviews with Sharon Stone who discussed the importance of using celebrity to promote philanthropy and raise awareness; and with Mélanie Diam, the former French rapper who stepped away from public life in the early 2010s after converting to Islam. Diam is the subject of Houda Benyamina’s documentary “Salam” which was produced by Brut and played at Cannes. The interview got more than 15 million views.
Other popular videos included Tom Cruise on the red carpet for the world premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick,” as well as Indian star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who got 4 million views on Brut India’s Instagram account alone.
Brut also raised more than $250,000 through an NFT fundraiser organized with prominent digital artist Emily Yang, known as Pplpleasr, to benefit the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative for young female creators.
“The alliance of Brut’s social impact drive with the iconic brand of the Cannes Film Festival was a success and we’re now looking forward to leveraging the impact we generated during the 12 days of the festival throughout the year,” said Guillaume Lacroix, co-founder of Brut. He added that the three-year partnership with Cannes was signed in December which only gave them a few months to prepare. “Next year, we’ll be back with even bigger plans,” said Lacroix.
Brut and French public broadcaster France Televisions took over this year from Canal Plus Group as media partners for the Cannes Film Festival. (Variety)
