From an interloper in shorts to an honorary Palme D’Or, Peter Jackson is a hit at Cannes

The first time Sir Peter Jackson came to Cannes, he went to the Palais to collect his accreditation and was immediately thrown out. Like any good New Zealander, he was wearing shorts. He was there with his (very) low-budget film Bad Taste, one of a series of comic horror films he calls “splatstick”. “I had no experience of the film industry,” he says. “These were amateur films, made by me and my mates on Sundays.”

Despite the contretemps over correct dress, that trip to Cannes in 1987 changed his life. Bad Taste sold into America. Until that moment, Jackson had been working in Wellington as a photo engraver. “I left New Zealand a photo engraver, came to Cannes and returned to New Zealand as a filmmaker,” he says. In 2001, he was back with a 20-minute show reel of Lord of the Rings, the three-film epic dismissed at the time by much of the industry as an absurdly expensive folly. This year, he is the recipient of an honorary Palme D’Or for his life’s work.

Not that his work is over, by any means; as he told a packed festival theatre at a “rendezvous” the day after he received his award, he has been spending his downtime between ceremonies in his hotel room, working on the script for his long-awaited Tintin film. He produced Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, released in 2011, as part of a two-picture pact. “The deal was that Steven directs one and I direct another,” he said. “Fifteen years (later) I haven’t made mine. I feel very awkward about that.”

Jackson’s on-stage interview, which started with a spontaneous standing ovation, ranged from behind-the-scenes about giving a young Kate Winslet her first screen kiss (in 1994’s Heavenly Creatures) and signing up Fay Wray to appear as an old woman in his version of King Kong to his views on AI in filmmaking. It was a highlight of the first couple of days of the festival, given the much-discussed lack of Hollywood stars on the red carpet and lukewarm reviews for the opening night film: a French comedy set among carnival workers in the 1920s called The Electric Kiss.

Festival openers are never heavy hitters, so that is no surprise. It is over the weekend that the big beasts of arthouse cinema will start to be released: new films from Iranian master Asghar Farhadi, Polish multiple Oscar nominee Pawel Pawlikowski, Japanese festival regulars Hirokazu Kore’eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Romanian scourge Radu Jude, whose Diary of a Chambermaid is set in France and will no doubt be another volley aimed at class exploitation and bourgeois hypocrisy.

Ageing wild child Pedro Almodovar will be on the Croisette later in the week with Bitter Christmas, while American cinema is represented by filmmakers from beyond Hollywood: Ira Sachs with an AIDS drama starring Rami Malek, Steven Soderbergh’s documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview and New York indie James Gray with Paper Tiger, about two American brothers who become entangled with the Russian mafia.

There is nothing here, however, with the sheer showbiz impact of a new Top Gun or Mission Impossible. Before the programme was announced there was speculation that it might include Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey or Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. But The Odyssey is unfinished and Spielberg is reputedly guarding his film’s surprise ending as much as he can.

But it is also true that studios have shied from festivals – and from Cannes in particular – because there is too great a risk of being mauled by critics. No film can recover from that. If a festival launch is deemed important, Venice is ideally placed at the start of the awards season, although Cannes has the advantage of first discovery. “The studios need to understand that many films began their careers in Cannes before heading off on a glorious path to the Oscars,” said festival director Thierry Fremaux when unveiling his program. In 2024, it was Cannes’s recognition that took an American independent film, Anora, to Oscars success.

Studios are also deterred by the expense of a Cannes launch, which can run into seven figures with a large film team. High-end costs are three times what they were before the pandemic, while most companies have notably less to spend. Only a day or two before the festival began, agencies handling luxury apartments with multiple bathrooms were slashing their rental rates to the same levels as single flats. Any rent was better than none.

The enthusiasm for cinema itself remains undimmed, however. As Peter Jackson talked through his filmmaking career, every film took shape again when he discussed it, including the ones that weren’t successful.

“A lot of people don’t like The Hobbit,” he said, “But I actually like it. Every film I make I like because ultimately, the films I make are for me. At the very end of the day, I don’t make films for an audience. I don’t try to guess what someone else would want to see.” Judging by the reactions, however, everyone wants to see Tintin.

Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter.