I had the immense privilege to run the marketing at Sony when i received a tape of Boyz'n The Hood with the idea to submit it to Cannes in 1991.
To our great surprise, Gilles Jacob invited the film (first feature by young John Singleton into un Certain Regard)
I started a marketing campaign which remains one of on my best prides in marketing several hundreds of films over the years.
I asked Anne Lara our press attache to identify one journalist with an important knowledge of "Black Cinema" he should be the first to see that film and guide us. The journa:list of Liberation left the screening in our meeting room in tears, deeply moved (he watched on a TV screen from the tape) telling us "this guy is Orson Welles..."
He became our first spokesperson, buzzing among journalists in Paris. The film came in Cannes with an aura.
We worked hard to build the house for the premiere (including young kids from around town and bad neigbourhood, create specific cannes environment for the film that would feel authentic, legitimate and ETHNIC.
Posters on the croisette were designed live in front of Canal+ by graffiti artists, a rap concert with Ice Cube performing...
Roger Ebert declared Cannes was High Tide for Black new Wave in 1991 he wrote that year:
"The French New Wave was a rebirth of French films in the early 1960s, and the German new wave represented the same process in Germany in the 1970s. Now black American filmmakers are developing a new stylistic and personal vision that reached critical mass at this year's Cannes Film Festival. In May of 1991, here in the incongruous setting of the French Riviera, far from the urban settings of most of their films, the black new wave came of age."
John Singleton in good company at the debussy screening of his film (we turned some 500 people out whoc ould not fit the 1500 seats theater)
"On one night, for example, there were two big post-screening parties in town, both for films by black Americans. In a nightclub up in town, rap artist Ice Cube performed in a disco jampacked with people celebrating the premiere "Boyz N the Hood," the extraordinary new film by 23-year old John Singleton. Down on the beach, there was a celebration for Bill Duke's "A Rage In Harlem," a romantic comedy based on one of the books of Harlem crime novelist Chester Himes.
At the "Boyz" party, I found myself sitting next to Frank Price, president of Columbia Pictures and the man who gave Singleton , then 22 and still in film school, the green light to write and direct the film. "When John came in and started to talk about his ideas," Price said " was reminded of another kid who walked into my office once--Steven Spielberg." Singleton wanted to make a film about a bright black kid who grows up in South Central Los Angeles, who lives in the middle of gang violence and the other usual ghetto problems, who is surrounded by ways to go wrong, but who is raised by a father who takes his responsibilities seriously. The movie, which played out of competition in a category called "Un Certain Regard," was by general agreement the most talked-about and well-liked film at Cannes this year, and Price seemed pleased with himself for having placed a wise bet on Singleton."
I had set that party at Studio Circus (Paul Pacini had also been the owner of the RocknRoll Circus in Paris where Jim Morrison died in 1971)
Ice Cube performed a great concert to a packed audience totally inexperimented in Rap Culture (lots of studio "suits"). To bridge that gap and put some warmth in the ambiance I had asked the infamous Django Edwards "clown?" to break the ice. An easy task for him, a huge surprsie to many (including the same Frank Price when Django exhibited a huyge plastic toy)
But my best memory of all this work remains Frank Price telling me "Bruno I want to thank you your team for a fantastic work for Boyz a in Cannes, when i return to the office I will raise the domestic Box Office estimate from 30M$ to 50M$ (he was so right, with actual Box Office in excess of 54M$.)
