Cannes: Côte d'Azur

It's been two decades since I last worked La Croisette—twenty years spent building a documentary library that now culminates with The Piccirilli Factor making its play on the French Riviera.

Cannes: Côte d'Azur

Cannes remains Cannes. While the world morphs around it, this annual convergence of producers and programmers holds steady—a peculiar ecosystem where global reach is negotiated over espresso and the occasional glass of champagne.

From Caffé Roma across from the Palais des Festivals, I'm watching the familiar choreography: the program hunters, the producers, the eternal cat-and-mouse.

The first question is always: which am I? The answer determines everything.

What I'm offering starts with six Italian brothers who carved the American Dream into stone—the seated Lincoln, the NYPL lions, hundreds of monuments that became part of our collective visual vocabulary. The Piccirilli Factor has found its audience at The Met and in academic circles, but can it translate across Europe and the Middle East? That's what I'm here to test.

Wednesday, Arte—Europe's heavyweight for cultural programming—airs a 15-minute special on the Piccirilli, produced by Jennifer Luby and built on our research. From Berlin to Paris, the broadcast reaches Cannes: Côte d'Azur at precisely the right moment. It's a validation made possible by donors and sponsors who believed in the work, and being here is how I honor that trust: by pushing toward new horizons.

The brothers are looking for friends. So am I.