logo
Inside TikTok's Cannes Film Festival Takeover, From One-on-One Time With Tom Cruise to Reece Feldman's Short Film Premiere

Inside TikTok's Cannes Film Festival Takeover, From One-on-One Time With Tom Cruise to Reece Feldman's Short Film Premiere

Yahoo26-05-2025
TikTok creators got the surprise of their lives during the first week of Cannes Film Festival, when Tom Cruise showed up to give a talk on his new film 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' ahead of its premiere.
The 34 film-centric creators, who TikTok invited to the festival from across the globe, thought they were just coming to the platform's festival hub at the J.W. Marriott for a content creation workshop — until Cruise came out of nowhere. In partnership with Paramount, Cruise gave a 20-minute fireside chat with creator Reece Feldman (@guywithamoviecamera on the platform) and then hung around for about an hour after to have one-on-one conversations with as many of the TikTokers as possible.
More from Variety
Jafar Panahi's Cannes Palme d'Or Is a 'Powerful Blow to the Machinery of Repression in the Islamic Republic,' Says 'Seed of the Sacred Fig' Director Mohammad Rasoulov (EXCLUSIVE)
'Militantropos' Review: Austere Anti-War Doc Employs Formal Control in an Impassioned Defense of Ukraine
'The Last One for the Road' Review: A Pleasant Italian Gem on Drinking Buddies, Aging and Wistful Flavors of Life
'I've never asked permission to create,' Cruise told the room. 'Actors and filmmakers and businessmen say, 'What should I do?' Do it. Learn it, apply it and don't wait to know everything. The only way to learn is to go jump in, and don't worry about making mistakes.'
For TikTok's EMEA head of content operations Marlène Masure, the time with Cruise underlines just how valuable TikTok has become not just as an official partner of the festival, but within the film industry as a whole.
'Having two hours in Tom Cruise's agenda is a testament to the power of our movie community and how important they are,' she told Variety during the festival, adding: 'I hope that this will inspire other studios to give bigger access to creators to top talents.'
Indeed, TikTok's presence at the festival this year felt larger than ever, with several events and activations taking place. The platform had its own party, an industry brunch where Feldman interviewed Daniel Kaluuya about redefining fandom, and hosted a premiere for Feldman's first short film, 'Wait, Your Car?.' For Feldman, who started posting videos on the platform in 2020 of his experience working on the set of 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and now has 2.4 million followers, it was a pinch-me moment.
'That was always the dream,' he said of premiering his first project at Cannes. 'If I won the lottery at any point in my life, the first thing I was going to do was be like, 'Alright, let's sit down, let's choose one of the scripts I've written and let's get really practical about making this.''
Having been told about the opportunity in February, Feldman had roughly three months to write, cast, shoot, edit and deliver the short. 'Wait, Your Car?,' starring Whitney Peak, Ruby Cruz, Minnie Mills and Noa Fisher, follows four girls whose friendship is put to the test after one of them becomes convinced that her car is trying to kill her. The reception to the short in the Palais was glowing, with the screening room filled to standing-room only. Feldman plans to continue taking the short around the festival circuit in hopes that studios and production companies will take it as 'proof of style.'
'It's showing you how I like to shoot things, the tone, the timing, the tempo, the writing style, the humor,' he said. 'So that's the thing that I'm most excited for people to take away, like, 'That's the distinct voice of Reece.''
Masure sees the Cannes partnership, which started four years ago, as a way to give back to TikTok's thriving #FilmTok community and provide an inside look at the festival to those on the platform who may be discovering it for the first time. By the second week of the festival, 27,000 videos had been created on TikTok with the hashtag #Cannes2025, up from 22,000 last year, and posts from creators at the festival garnered over 26 million combined views.
'Cannes used to be a bit more restricted to a certain community of moviemakers in the movie industry,' Masure said. 'That's the whole purpose of what we do — provide more visibility to these talents. Everyone creating content on the platform can have a chance to become a great moviemaker.'
Creator and presenter Zainab Jiwa (@zeewhatidid) has seen firsthand the growth in interest regarding the festival with her majority Gen-Z audience. 'It's been a great way to give them access into a space that seems exclusive in a way,' she said. 'What I've tried to do in every step of my journey is to take the audience with me, because I never had that growing up.'
Jiwa, who went viral last fall for her playful junket interview with Denzel Washington in which he gave life advice, was on hand in the second week of the festival to be the platform's red carpet host for the premieres of Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme,' Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' and more. Though Jiwa may be holding a mic and talking to some of Hollywood's biggest stars, she acknowledges that her purpose is different than that of a journalist — many of whom have become frustrated in recent years with lack of access to talent at Cannes and other festivals.
'My aim in an interview in general isn't to get something out of them,' she said. 'I'm not here to find the scoop — my aim is to make them feel comfortable and to just have a chat because that's what my audience wants.'
Both Jiwa and Feldman are also open about the fact that they partner with studios on many of their conversations. 'At the end of the day, I'm biased,' Feldman said. 'I'm being hired by these studios, so my opinion is, from the get-go, moot.'
But that doesn't mean that they're only asking throwaway questions. In fact, Masure considers conversations between stars like Cruise and creators like Feldman to be more like peer discussions.
'He was very technical,' she said of Feldman's questions to Cruise, many of which centered around how he pulled off 'Mission: Impossible 8's' crazy stunt work. 'I mean, the guy has been working in movie production so he knows a great deal about this. It felt almost like a movie professional to another movie professional.'
Overall, TikTok having a large presence at Cannes just makes practical sense to Feldman, as he sees the film industry and social media as now being 'intrinsically tied.'
'I think it's good to lean into the TikTok of it all,' he said. 'It doesn't mean having to ask talent to do dances — it could really just be hey, here's how you sign up for the festival.'
He continued: 'Social doesn't have to be used in the most extreme of ways, and TikTok is a place where it's approachable. I do believe that it acts almost as a public sphere, and I think it's good that we're forced to confront voices outside of the ones that we just choose to hear.'
Best of Variety
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz
Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Should we feel weird about the Coldplay cheating drama?
Should we feel weird about the Coldplay cheating drama?

Vox

timean hour ago

  • Vox

Should we feel weird about the Coldplay cheating drama?

is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media. What does it mean to be a private individual in public? Are we all just characters waiting to go viral? These questions have resurfaced following the instantly-infamous Jumbotron incident that occurred during a Coldplay concert last week. Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, who's married, and the company's head of human resources, Kristin Cabot, were caught cuddling before trying (and failing) to evade the camera. Chris Martin quipped, apparently accurately, that they acted like they were having an affair. Some, though, have taken a more hands-on approach to the drama. Once the concert footage went viral, users flooded the comments of Byron and Cabot's LinkedIn pages before they were taken down. Another Coldplay concertgoer sent TMZ additional footage of the couple canoodling. Users identified Byron's wife, flooding her social media, as well as a third Astronomer executive, who was spotted on the Jumbotron laughing at the ordeal. Understandably, a married CEO getting caught and subsequently resigning for having inappropriate relations with a subordinate hasn't warranted much sympathy. The ordeal is amusing to the extent that the players are largely unrelatable and seemingly thoughtless. Still, the fallout has been disconcerting to some. While the couple was exposed in a seemingly organic and accidental way, the speed at which the story escalated, with the help of online sleuths and even brands weighing in, demonstrated how easily personal matters can become public spectacles. It raises some obvious concerns about our relationship to privacy in a digital culture where the surveillance of strangers has been normalized and personal information is increasingly accessible. What happens to privacy when everything is available? What happens when exposing others is more and more commonly dressed up as fun? Since the early days of social media, average people have been at risk of becoming public, widely discussed figures overnight. Still, the advent of TikTok has made this a much more common occurrence — frequently without the permission of the people who go viral. The idea that you could be watched at any time but can never know when has gone from a philosophical prison design — Jeremy Bentham's concept of the panopticon— to a state of reality. In a 2023 BuzzFeed News story, reporter Clarissa-Jan Lim described this mostly TikTok-driven phenomenon as 'panopticontent,' where 'everything is content for the creating, and everyone is a nonplayer character in [users'] world[s].' In many cases, filming strangers has been proven to be a correct and necessary course of action. The Black Lives Matter movement was bolstered by citizens recording their negative interactions with police, for awareness-raising and proof in seeking justice. This seemed to inspire a surge in 'Karen' videos, exposing people for racist and other discriminatory behavior. However, post-pandemic, the tendency to pull out your phone and press record has descended into something much less urgent and more opportunistic. We've witnessed this before. At the height of tabloid culture in the '90s and early 2000s, we watched celebrities get hounded by paparazzi and have their personal lives examined with a microscope in magazines. Associate professor Jenna Drenten, who studies digital consumer culture at Loyola University Chicago, coined the term 'TikTok tabloid' to describe how this behavior has translated to the app in much more participatory fashion from observers. However, she says that users have created a power imbalance by subjecting regular people to this sort of spotlight. 'In the past, there was an implicit social contract: celebrities traded privacy for fame, and audiences felt justified in scrutinizing them,' says Drenten. 'But that logic doesn't cleanly apply to regular people caught in viral moments. And yet, the same infrastructure of judgment, spectacle, and moral commentary gets applied to them.' This behavior isn't just user-driven. It's often amplified and commodified by brands, as seen with Neon, Chipotle, and even betting platforms, like Polymarket, following the Coldplay incident. Drenten says that the 'blurring of public spectacle, private consequence, and corporate opportunism' is where things get even more 'ethically murky.' 'The viral attention economy is no longer limited to individuals or content creators,' she says. 'Brands are increasingly acting like culture-jacking spectators, helping to fuel the pile-on.' A larger problem often occurs after this content circulates and rakes in tons of views. The social mystery at the heart of any human drama routinely incites further engagement and sleuthing, with users becoming participants in the saga. As with the Astronomer CEO and his family, spectators usually end up doxxing the people involved, whether that's exposing their job positions or their home addresses. As this behavior gets swept up in more socially-sanctioned reactions (like jokes from regular people and brands), it affirms an increasing loss of etiquette around personal information, one that's been spearheaded by tech corporations, according to one Cornell University professor. Helen Nissenbaum, author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, says tech companies have been influential in shaping our views on privacy based on what's accessible to us, creating an 'all bets are off' approach to spreading information. 'The big tech platforms have gotten away with a really poor conception of privacy,' Nissenbaum says. 'It's allowed them to say things like, 'If it's in public, anything goes.' This is how OpenAI defended itself by saying, 'We're scraping stuff on the open web without asking.'' Apps have normalized collecting and sharing users' personal information to target advertisers. There are now websites, like Did My Friends Vote, where you can easily but not always accurately access someone's voting history. These issues around theft and consent are playing out in the development of generative AI. The New York Times is currently suing OpenAI for using their original content to train its popular AI tool, ChatGPT. This sense of entitlement trickles down to practically anyone who owns a phone. Nissenbaum says, as a result, we need to adopt a 'new theory' and new 'social norms' around privacy. One way is to remind people that these extreme levels of surveillance and information-gathering are, in her words, 'creepy.' The consequence is a world where people feel less free to be their authentic selves in public, whether that's dressing how they want or attending a protest. 'When we get to this point where we accept that people can take videos, take photos, post it online for ICE or NSA or whoever to grab those photos, now we're in a police state,' she says. For now, the Coldplay Jumbotron incident might warrant some genuine laughs. But if we value not only our privacy but our sense of individuality, our impulse to amplify strangers' drama could probably use some reflection.

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer' fans speculate Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. shot scenes separately
‘I Know What You Did Last Summer' fans speculate Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. shot scenes separately

New York Post

time2 hours ago

  • New York Post

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer' fans speculate Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. shot scenes separately

Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt survived the original 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' — but they can't escape from new fan theories. Twenty-eight years after the 1997 slasher hit theaters, the movie returned with a sequel on July 18. 12 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' fans speculate about the film. X Along with new faces, including Madelyn Cline, Lola Tung, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Chase Sui Wonders, audiences received the ultimate blast from the past. Prinze Jr., 49, reprised his role as Ray Bronson, while Hewitt, 46, brought back the iconic Julie James. However, on Saturday, one social media suggested that the stars didn't film their scenes together this time around. 'Okay guys. Let's spark a debate here,' they posted on X. 'Do you ACTUALLY think Jennifer Love Hewitt & Freddie Prinze Jr. filmed their scenes together for 'I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER' (2025)?! People are starting to notice the 'cuts and separate shots'. This is too much lol.' 12 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' fans think Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. shot scenes separately. X The Sony reboot's director, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, quickly cleared up any confusion. 'They absolutely shot their scenes together. Hope this helps,' she wrote on X with a heart emoji. The original poster apologized to the filmmaker and shared that they felt embarrassed. Robinson, 37, responded, 'No apology necessary! I totally get why people might think that cause of some of the coverage but they are absolutely acting off each other. It was electric!' 12 Jennifer Love Hewitt in the new slasher. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Despite the pair filming their scenes together, Prinze Jr. revealed he hadn't seen Hewitt since shooting the 1998 sequel, 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.' 'We run in different circles,' the actor told Variety on Saturday. 'I hadn't seen her since we wrapped the second movie in '98, but we care a lot about these characters, and it was all still there.' 'After we finished that first scene, we had a chance to say, 'Oh, you have kids. And you have kids.' Honestly, I think the first scene we share in this movie, where Ray and Julie confront the reality of their relationship, is the best work we've done of all three,' Prinze Jr. continued. 'I'm really proud of it. Our director, Jenn Robinson, three-dimensionalized these characters.' 12 Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ray in the 2025 'IKWYDLS.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection The 'She's All That' alum tied the knot with his 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, in 2002. The pair share kids Charlotte, 15, and Rocky, 12. Hewitt, meanwhile, married her 'The Client List' co-star Brian Hallisay in 2013. The couple are parents to Autumn, 11, Atticus, 10, and Aidan, 3. There has been rumors of a decades-long feud between Hewitt and Gellar, 48. 12 Freddie Prinze Jr. in a scene from the new 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection On Friday, the 'Holiday Junkie' actress revealed she hasn't kept in touch with her former co-star since starring in the 1997 project. 'I honestly don't even know what that was or how that all came to be,' Hewitt told Vulture. 'I just think people don't want the narrative to be easy. Why do we always have to be against each other and out for each other.' 'I haven't seen Sarah,' she explained. 'Literally, we've not talked since I saw her at 18 years old when the first movie came out. That's why it's so funny to me. People were like, 'Say something back.' And I'm like, 'What am I going to say? I've not seen her.' On my side, we're good. I have no idea where this is coming from.' 12 Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. in a scene from 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection In the original horror film, Gellar played Helen Shivers, the beauty queen who was murdered. Ryan Phillippe starred as Barry William Cox, who was also killed the first time around. The 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' alum addressed rumors of bad blood after she and Hewitt didn't pose together for pictures on the red carpet last week. 'For everyone asking — I never got to see @jenniferlovehewitt, who is fantastic in the movie. I was inside with my kids when the big carpet happened. And unfortunately, JLH didn't come to the after-party,' Gellar wrote on Instagram at the time. 12 Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillipe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr. in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' Mandalay Ent/Kobal/Shutterstock 'If you have ever been to one of these, it's crazy,' she continued. 'I sadly didn't get pics with most of the cast. But that doesn't change how amazing I think they all are. Unfortunately, some things happen only in real life and not online.' Gellar instead posed for pictures with Prinze Jr. and her former 'Buffy' co-star, Seth Green. She also snapped pictures with Robinson, and the slasher's new star, Cline. 12 Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt in the original film. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Hewitt previously addressed the online speculation in December. 'I just heard that there's this whole thing where they think that Sarah and I were fighting or something. There's all these things out there,' she said on Tommy DiDario's 'I've Never Said This Before' podcast. 'I've really enjoyed going and trying to read the stuff now and be like, 'What are people saying about when we did the movie before, now, all of that stuff?'' Hewitt continued. 'Somebody the other day was like, 'Yeah, I think Julie made sure that she was killed because girl actresses don't like to work with girl actresses.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?'' 12 Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Freddie Prinze Jr. in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection 12 The cast of 'I Know What You Did last Summer' poses at the film's premiere on October 8 in Hollywood. Fred Prouser 'I was 18,' the 'Party of Five' alum said. 'They were not taking script notes from me guys. Like what are you talking about?' That same month, Gellar was asked if Hewitt would return for the new 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' film. 'I have nothing to do with that,' she responded before walking away from the interviewer. Gellar later clarified why she left on her Instagram Stories. 12 Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. at the 2025 premiere of 'IKWYDLS.' FilmMagic 'Aspiring actors please note: This 'deer in the headlights' reaction is perfect for when you are excited to see so many old friends in one project but have already stupidly forgotten what NDA means once this month,' she penned beneath a shot from the film's Australian set. Hewitt also confirmed that the entire cast got along great on set in the '90s. 'All of us were in that experience together, kind of figuring it all out and everything,' she recalled. 'I root for her and Freddie and think it's the cutest thing in the world that they've been married for 100 years and have kids. It's adorable. So yeah it's been really funny to see all this stuff that people think.' 12 Jennifer Love Hewitt on the red carpet of 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' Sony Pictures via Getty Images This time around, Prinze Jr. had just as good of an experience. 'Whatever a high school union feels like, that's what it felt like,' he told People earlier this month. 'You have no idea what's changed, what's the same. You're excited to show what you think you're better at. You hope they notice it. It was all those things.'

Look: Paul Mescal, Josh O'Connor embrace in 'History of Sound' poster
Look: Paul Mescal, Josh O'Connor embrace in 'History of Sound' poster

UPI

time2 hours ago

  • UPI

Look: Paul Mescal, Josh O'Connor embrace in 'History of Sound' poster

1 of 5 | Paul Mescal (L) and Josh O'Connor star in "The History of Sound," in theaters Sept. 12. Poster courtesy of Mubi July 23 (UPI) -- Mubi released the poster for The History of Sound on Wednesday. The film opens Sept. 12 in theaters. Paul Mescal stars as Lionel, a Boston Conservatory graduate who receives a letter from his classmate David (Josh O'Connor). Lionel visits David in Maine to collect traditional folk songs. The poster shows Mescal and O'Connor's faces in closeup, eyes closed and noses touching, lips about to connect. The synopsis confirms The History of Sound is a love story between their characters. O'Connor also starred in last year's tennis romance Challengers, co-starring Zendaya and Mike Faist. Mescal starred in the 2023 drama All of Us Strangers, a love story with Andrew Scott. The History of Sound premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Molly Price, Alison Bartlett and Chris Cooper also star. Oliver Hermanus directs Ben Shattuck's script.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store