Paul Nagy’s Cannes Diary #1

Paul Nagy, APAC chief creative officer at VML is representing APAC on the Cannes Film Lions jury. Nagy, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

Well it’s Cannes 2024 and the sun is shining, the rose is flowing and the events are bigger than ever… apparently.

For me, Cannes this year consists of a dark, cold room that I share with 12 other creative people from around the world from dawn to dusk… and the pressure is on. When we arrived yesterday, the incredibly sharp team who run the show got us going by pointing out that the Film jury was the original Lion jury – it was in fact the only award given in the first show in Vienna some 71 years ago.

So it was a, “No pressure – don’t fuck it up” kinda thing.

And when you’ve got nearly three thousand film darlings from the global creative community to preside over, you want to have your game face on. Every entry carries someone’s hopes and dreams, and we take that very seriously.

Trends from the work so far? Endlines can make or break your film (so don’t underestimate their importance), long form is becoming more prevalent (but we’re enjoying it a little too much and need to be more reductive), micro films can be freaking amazing (not joking), documentary-style advertising can be powerful (but make sure the brand is genuinely relevant and the storytelling compelling) and last but not least: Thai advertising has burnt the rulebook and is producing some of the most entertaining, wildly unique and batshit crazy advertising on earth.

After Day 2, which went for a little over 14 hours, that’s what’s top of mind anyway (well, that and the fact it appears I’m going to go home with whiter legs than I arrived with…).

Tomorrow’s dedicated to the shiny stuff. Can’t wait.