Product Design Lions retired; Track Ambassadors to be appointed
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has officially launched the 2019 Festival, opening for delegate registration and announcing details around next year’s event.
Two new Lions will be added to the awards lineup in 2019. The Creative Strategy Lion will sit within the Reach Track and will celebrate the idea behind the idea, how strategic planning can redefine a brand, reinvent its business, and influence consumers or wider culture. Elsewhere, complementing the Entertainment Track, the Entertainment Lion for Sport will celebrate creativity that leverages the galvanizing power of sports and eSports for brands. Commenting on the launch of these two Lions, Simon Cook, VP Creative Excellence, said, “Both of these Lions represent a shifting industry landscape and now is the right time to recognize these disciplines through our awards. With an increasingly broader creative communications ecosystem, the Creative Strategy Lion will elevate and define the importance of strategy in creative vision, while the Entertainment Lion for Sport will give credence to the breadth of content and communications surrounding this unique global market.”
Also announced is the decision to retire the Product Design Lions. Categories from this Lion will be absorbed into the Design Lions and Innovation Lions.
For the first time, Cannes Lions will appoint Track Ambassadors ahead of the 2019 Festival. “The nine tracks–Craft, Communication, Experience, Reach, Impact, Good, Innovation, Health and Entertainment–are an organizing structure that reflect and represent the core disciplines that underpin and define the global branded communications industry. We are appointing track ambassadors to champion, offer advisory, and elevate their specific discipline,” said Philip Thomas, chairman, Cannes Lions. The track ambassadors will be chosen from the 2019 jury presidents.
Details of the content program have also been announced, with sessions operating within the framework of the nine tracks. The agenda is set to be more immersive and interactive than before, including more case studies, Q&A and debate. Some of the topics set to be covered include The Impact of Creativity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Industry Transformation, Digital Transformation, Creative Strategy, Multi-touchpoint Storytelling, Craft and Brand Experience, and Trust, Ethics and Transparency. The Call for Stage Content is open until December 14, 2018 and welcomes ideas and submissions from anyone and anywhere. There is no charge to speak on stage and successful submissions are chosen based on the strength of the idea and how original, unique and unexpected it is.
Cannes Lions will take place from June 17-21, 2019.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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