Behind the scenes on the Festival de Cannes’ red carpet

Although the red carpet is part of what makes Cannes Cannes, it wasn’t until 1984 that it became an official staple.

When journalist Yves Mourousi was tasked with redesigning the walk up the steps, he took inspiration from the Oscars and its ceremonial red carpet, a feature that has been used to welcome high-profile guests since Antiquity. The decision was a hit: now almost forty years later, the walk up the steps along the red carpet is considered one of the highlight events at the Festival de Cannes.

The eye-catching spectacle of the walk up the steps owes much of its impact to the particular shade of red used. Exclusive colours have been especially developed for the Festival de Cannes since 2016: ROSSO red on the central section, and TEATRO red for the sides.

The Festival’s red carpet wasn’t always red. From the first ever edition in 1946 and through to 1949, it was blue.

For many years, the blue carpet was used by film crews and teams from the Un Certain Regard selection, who would enter the Debussy Theatre via a different entrance. All guests have been climbing the same red steps since 2011, and the blue carpet has since faded into distant memory.

In 2020, the ceremonial carpet’s trademark red was replaced with black to honour the victims of the attack on the Notre-Dame basilica in Nice.

Walking up the steps has become an iconic ritual for film stars: along 60 metres of red carpet, and up 24 steps that lead to the top and the Palais des Festival.

Up until 2021, the carpet was changed three times every day, before each official screening in the Louis Lumière Theatre. For environmental reasons, the weighty felt is now only refreshed once daily, for total savings of 1,400 kilos compared to earlier editions.

For the past dozen years or so, the Festival’s red carpet has been recycled after use across the automobile, construction and agri-feed industries.

In 2021, the Festival began experimenting with ways of re-using it. The carpet is now collected by an association that specialises in the circular economy and repurposing materials within the PACA region’s culture and education sectors. The red carpet is cleaned and refurbished before being re-used locally. This saves several tonnes of fabric from landfill, and lends the association’s members a little helping hand.

Over the past two years, it has been put back to work and used in set designs, as a decorative feature for graduation ceremonies, and upcycled to make new items.
This process is part of a wider zero-waste policy: reducing, re-using and recycling.