The Cannes Film Festival has renewed its short film competition partnership with TikTok for a second year in a move that is likely to come under scrutiny amid the global debate over the platform’s privacy and data security record.
Delegate General Thierry Frémaux said in an interview with Variety on Monday that the festival was “happy” with the partnership and “the human relationship” it had forged with TikTok, despite a bumpy first edition of the competition.
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His comments come three days after France joined a growing list of countries banning the app on government-issued devices due to security concerns, alongside the U.S., UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Canada.
Deadline asked the festival whether this development would have a bearing on the partnership and also whether employees of the festival, which is partly financed by the state, would be covered by the phone ban. The festival didn’t respond.
TikTok is among a dozen official partners of Cannes alongside luxury jeweller Chopard, hairdressing brand Dessange, state broadcast France TV and fashion conglom Kering.
The TikTok partnership was announced in 2022 to fanfare and suggestions the tie-in would help the festival connect with younger generations.
The contest got off to a rocky start when French-Cambodian documentarian Rithy Panh resigned as president of the jury, complaining of interference from the China-owned App. He returned a few days later after receiving written assurances that the choices of the jury would be respected.
TikTok presented the initiative as a success, later announcing that content linked to the short film competition hashtag generated 9.5 billion views.
The announcement of the partnership’s renewal for 2023 was far more low-key. TikTok put up the news on its platform on March 6 but the festival’s sole acknowledgement of the accord at the time was a retweet of the TikTok tweet announcing the launch.
As last year, the competition is open to all TikTok creators who can enter by filling in an official form and uploading their work on TikTok with the hashtag #TikTokShortFilm.
A short list of 40 works will be drawn up from the works with the greatest number of views and levels of engagement. These will then be judged by a jury, the details of which have yet to be announced. The three winners will be invited to a prize-winning ceremony in Cannes in May.
Pushback by Western governments against TikTok has been growing in recent weeks driven by concerns about what happens to the data the platform gathers from users.
Critics suggest TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance has access to all the data gathered by the App and could come under pressure to share it with Chinese authorities, especially at a time of deteriorating relations between China and the West.
American lawmakers, who grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in a U.S. congressional hearing in Washington last week, have gone as far as to suggest that the App is a surveillance tool and poses a threat to national security.
Further concerns include the platform being used as a tool to spread misinformation and shape beliefs as well as around its impact on mental health especially among youngsters, with the 10 to 19-year-old demographic making up roughly 25% of its users.
Alongside Cannes, TikTok has also recently announced partnerships with France’s upcoming Salon du Livre in Paris in April and the Eurovision Song Contest and also has ties with a number of other cultural and entertainment events in Europe.
TikTok’s European operation has attempted to counter concerns over data security, recently announcing a new data security regime bannered Project Clover.
Under the scheme, data collected in Europe will be stored on servers in Ireland and Norway and security gateways have been put in place to vet data transfers out of the region.
Regardless of government concerns, TikTok remains an important platform for influencers and online creators in Europe. According to figures released by its European operation in February, 150 million people across Europe access the site each month.
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