CANNES, France, May 25 — Could a tiny movie studio founded seven years ago win the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize for a stunning fifth consecutive time? Neon, a New York-based indie movie outfit, has been dubbed “the Palme d’Or whisperer”, for a track record that turns the world’s most powerful movie producers green with envy. Films like Parasite , Titane , Triangle of Sadness and Anatomy of a Fall were released in US theatres by Neon, under deals struck before they won the Cannes prize. The company purchases -- and more recently, has produced — movies that it then distributes to movie theatres, as well as running marketing and awards campaign for the films.
When this year’s festival best film winner is unveiled today, Neon will again boast two frontrunners — giving it a strong hope of going five for five. Weeks before Cannes kicked off, Neon acquired Anora , a raw and often-hilarious story about a New York erotic dancer who strikes gold with a wealthy client, infuriating his Russian oligarch parents. It boasts the best reviews of the festival so far.
And last week, just days after its director secretly escaped from Iran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig was quietly snapped up by Neon. That film — about a judge’s struggles amid political unrest in Tehran — will have its world premiere yesterday, and expectations are sky-high. Multi-award-winning director Mohammad Rasoulof’s dramatic journey to Cannes, fleeing an Iranian prison sentence for “collusion a.
