On September 20, 1946, the first Cannes International Film Festival opened in the Casino Municipal on the Croisette, with films from eleven countries in competition and a jury chaired by the historian Georges Huisman. It ran two weeks. The Grand Prix du Festival International du Film was awarded to eleven films, one from each country, because the jury could not agree and because the rules asked it to reward national achievement rather than a single best.
The festival had been meant to open on September 1, 1939. Jean Zay, the minister of education, had come up with the idea in 1938 as a French answer to the Venice Mostra, which had become a showcase for fascist propaganda and had been won in 1938 by a German film and an Italian one. The town of Cannes was chosen over Biarritz and Vichy, and Louis Lumiere agreed to be president. The opening film was to be The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Then Germany invaded Poland on September 1 and the whole thing was called off.
When it finally ran, the conditions were poor. The organisers had about two months, the Casino was in bad repair, and the print of the opening Soviet film arrived late and in the wrong gauge. On the last night of the festival the reels of one of the prize winners were found burning in the projection room. What it had going for it was that everyone wanted to be there: Europe had not had an international film festival for seven years.
It nearly stopped. The 1947 festival was held, and the 1948 and 1950 editions were cancelled for lack of money. In 1949 the organisers built the Palais des Festivals on the site of the old Cercle Nautique, and in 1951 the festival moved from September to the spring so as not to clash with Venice. From 1955 the top prize has been the Palme d'Or, a palm in gold on a crystal base. The red carpet came later.
What it became is the largest film market in the world and the place where the idea of the auteur was promoted most effectively, largely through the criticism that came out of Cahiers du Cinema and the generation that wrote for it. The selection has always been a political instrument as well: films have been withdrawn under pressure from their governments, and the festival has refused to accept them. The 2020 edition was cancelled for the pandemic.