Screen Time: The Love Story Between Film and Cartier

With the maison adorning stars both on and off the silver screen – the Venice Film Festival is where that spark shines the brightest

Cartier’s world is a big one. So big, in fact, that there are often many facets of the maison’s philanthropic or social initiatives that it doesn’t much communicate on, preferring to just carry on the good work in the most elegant way possible – quietly, and for the sake of improving the world around us.

Sponsoring The Venice Film Festival, however, is not something one can or should – keep under wraps. Since becoming the headline sponsor of La Mostra Internatzionale d’Arte Cinematografica in 2021, it has endeavoured to not only do so in a suitably splashy, glamorous manner, but also in a classically Cartier sense; by weaving a more substantial magic just below the surface.

Yes, Angelina Jolie and Timothée Chalamet may walk the red carpet in Cartier’s finest – back in full force post-SAG-AFTRA strikes – but it’s beyond The Lido that the maison’s extracurriculars truly shine.

“That’s how we wanted to approach this partnership. Not to have [just] another red-carpet moment… we wanted it to be authentic and comprehensive, with meaning, and show our commitment to contemporary creation at large,” Arnaud Carrez, Cartier’s Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer told Bazaar Arabia.

“When we initiated this collaboration with La Mostra – La Mostra being glamorous, sophisticated and elegant – we said that Venice was the best city to express our diversity of commitment around art and culture,” he continues. “So everything started with La Mostra with cinema, but progressively Venice became an art and culture platform beyond it.

Cinema remains the main anchorage, but this year we have the chance to [exhibit at craft fair] Homo Faber, [support] the Jean Cocteau retrospective at The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, [run] the film masterclasses which are gaining traction year after year… so it’s really a unique platform for us.”

Not only unique – truly meaningful, too. The maison has gone far beyond just painting the town Cartier red every year (you can’t miss the buzz, nor the enormous billboard writ large on the side of the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute); it has actually put roots down in Venice. “Cartier is very much committed to Venice thanks to a few projects – we are also funding the restoration of Teatro Verde,” Arnaud adds, referring to the garden-set, open-air theatre where the maison hosted Melanie Laurent’s modern opera during the festival in 2022.

Speaking about the maison’s lauded contemporary art museum, Arnaud adds, “Fondation Cartier is also involved with La Mostra, and the Fondation has been supporting cinema since its creation in 1984. So it’s really a holistic commitment,” he explains, sharing that this year is also the Fondation’s 40th anniversary, with a new location for the space opening next year in Paris.

Venice, Cartier and La Mostra all share an artistic understanding, and as Cyrille Vigneron, Chairman of Cartier Culture and Philanthropy puts so clearly, “Birds of the same feather, flock together.” From Grace Kelly donning a Grain de Cafe necklace to Marilyn Monroe singing about the brand in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “Cartier and cinema are meant to be, always have been and always will be.” A love story worthy of the big screen.

Image credits: Mariam Gerard, Cartier Collection, @ Cartier. Fausto Picedi Archives Du Palais De Monaco – Aim. Loop Photo Service, Chicago / Deutsche Kinemathek – Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin, Alamy

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s October 2024 issue