Parties are Cannes’ unique language, and the HFPA speaks it very well – and with a purpose. On Friday, May 13, the Association threw a cocktail party at the glamorous Nikki Beach of the Carlton Hotel, on the Croisette, to benefit and honor FilmAid International.

A longtime grantee of the HFPA, FilmAid uses the power of film and media to transcend language and literacy, bringing life-saving information, psychological relief and much-needed hope to refugees and other communities in need around the globe. Since 1999 FilmAid has been screening movies in refugee camps to feed the imagination and the soul while providing life saving messages on the big screen to people with little access to crucial information”, in the words of founder Caroline Baron.

At the event the HFPA HFPA donated $100,000, followed by enthusiastic offerings from  attendees such as Participant Media’s founder and chairman Jeff Skoll who donated $100,000, as well as donations from Participant Media CEO David Linde, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Nikki Beach WorldWide owner Jack Penrod and wife Lucia, Motaz Nabulsi, DDA, FilmNation Entertainment, Benjamin Larretche, CometLife and A24.

Additional attendees included Joel Edgerton, Daniel Brühl, Dionne Warwick, Rebecca Hall, Golden Globe-nominated director and head of the Cannes International Film Festival jury George Miller, 20^th Century Fox chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos, Sony Pictures Classics co-presidents and co-founders Tom Bernard and Michael Barker, Fox Searchlight president Nancy Utley, Universal Pictures International Productions’ Peter Kujawski and Robert Walak, Frédérique Bel, Claude Lelouch, Elsa Zylberstein among many others.

At the party, top: HFPA president Lorenzo Soria and Dionne Warwick, bottom, left:George Miller and Jim Gianopulos; right: Lorenzo Soria and Daniel Bruhl

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