Sony Brings Stable of Filmmakers to Cannes for Columbia 100th Anniversary Bash

Sony brought together a multiverse’s worth of its filmmakers past and present together Friday at Cannes for a dinner celebrating the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures.

The attendees at Mamo Michelangelo included Cannes jury president and Barbie director Greta Gerwig (who made Little Women for Columbia), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Oscar winners Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Bad Boys: Ride or Die directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Chloe Zhao, whose The Rider was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, Anyone But You director Will Gluck and Kraven the Hunter filmmaker J.C. Chandor.

Entrepreneur and film producer Charles Finch hosted the dinner with Tom Rothman, chairman & CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group.

During the dinner, Rothman gave a toast in which he wandered among the tables, pointing out specific talent and giving a nod to their contributions to the studio, name checking Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman for his upcoming SNL 1975, actor Woody Harrelson for everything from The People vs. Larry Flynt to Zombieland and Spider-Man producer (and former Sony Studio head) Amy Pascal, whom he noted between the two of them, spanned about 40 years of the studio’s history.

“The history of our studio, its past, its present, its future, touches everyone in our great creative community. That’s what major studios do, and that’s what all the tech money on Earth cannot buy,” said Rothman to cheers.

Other attendees at the filmmaker’s dinner included Megalopolis actor Laurence Fishburne, CAA’s Bryan Lourd, actress Isabelle Huppert, Oscar-winning documentarian Mstyslav Chernov and Sanford Panitch, president, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group. 

Earlier in the evening, Rothman attended a screening of the Rita Hayworth classic Gilda, which first debuted at Cannes in 1946. Introducing a restored 4K version of film, the exec stood next to Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux and spoke in a mixture of English and French about the legacy of Gilda. He noted that the driving force behind the film was Gilda producer Virginia Van Upp, who worked her way up at Columbia Pictures to become the first female head of production in the Hollywood studio system. Gilda, directed by Charles Vidor and also starring Glenn Ford, is considered a high point in screen legend Hayworth’s career.

Rothman later noted he intended to only stay for ten minutes of the screening, as he had seen the film many times. But he was swept away, and stayed until the credits. “Don’t tell me that movies don’t matter. They do. They have, and they always will,” he said.