AmPav plans record year for student activity

Director of student programming Michael Bremer has also announced the first Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity Intensive and will launch a pilot programme with a group of students at this year’s festival in June.

AmPav’s student presence was set up in 1989 to give film and media students an insight into the festival.

The programme has evolved to include culinary, hospitality and event management students, as well as MBA business graduate students who work assignments with companies doing business in the Marché.

Bremer said the business, event, and culinary programmes had increased an average of 50% since 2012.

“We announced our first-ever international outreach initiative during last year’s festival and I’m thrilled to report that our student body this year is more international than it’s ever been, with participants hailing from Canada, Hong Kong, Brazil, Panama, El Salvador, Dubai, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan,” said Bremer.

“These students will witness in our Pavilion a microcosm of a much bigger dance going on just outside our doors, where film lovers from all corners of the globe come together to do business.”

More than 700 students from all over the world applied to this year’s various Cannes programmes, with roughly one-third accepted. An additional 300 applicants are under consideration for The American Pavilion’s three smaller programmes, the LA Intensive in August, the Venice Intensive at the Venice Film Festival, and AmPav’s newest initiative, the Cannes Lions Intensive in June.

“Additionally, we’ve made a conscious effort to increase enrolment in our hospitality, culinary, and business programmes to bring those student numbers more in line with the larger film contingent that joins us every year,” he said. “In fact, one of our culinary students from 15 years ago is now an educator at the University Of Central Florida’s prestigious Rosen School Of Hospitality, and returns this year in a faculty-mentor capacity with 16 students from Rosen.”

A group of 16 Rosen College students are participating in the Cannes Hospitality & Event Management Programme through The American Pavilion.

“I’m excited about the Cannes Lions Intensive,” said Bremer. “About six months ago we approached the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, often regarded as the world’s largest ad festival, proposing to develop for them what we’ve done for the film festival. 

“With so many new attendees like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Netflix, Amazon, and even Xbox upending traditional advertising paradigms, it’s vital that we in the entertainment sector sit up and take note. I will bring a pilot programme of students this first year, and hope to increase the scope of our presence there in the coming years.”

The American Pavilion past alumni have gone on to find jobs at The Weinstein Company, DreamWorks, Paramount, The William Morris Agency, Sony, Industry Entertainment, ICM, 20th Century Fox, Universal and The Walt Disney Company, among others.

Alumni include director Jeff Nichols and director Morgan J Freeman.