<\/p>\n
Neon chief and co-founder Tom Quinn has watched the last six Palme d\u2019Or ceremonies<\/a> from the same spot: gathered with colleagues around a laptop on the breakfast tables at his Cannes hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we upgraded a couple years ago and connected the computer to a TV,\u201d Quinn says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to do it any different.\u201d<\/p>\n Quinn has good reason to keep any good luck charm. In all six of those awards ceremonies, Neon has won the Palme, the prestigious top honor of the Cannes Film Festival<\/a>. It\u2019s an unparalleled streak for one of the most sought-after prizes in movies, second only to the best picture Oscar. No other studio has ever come close to anything like it.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one ever believes it, but we\u2019ve never gone to Cannes thinking we were going to win the Palme d\u2019Or,\u201d Quinn says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a surprise every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n When the 79th Cannes Film Festival gets underway Tuesday, Neon \u2014 a 60-person company founded in 2017 \u2014 rides in as an unlikely heavyweight. It\u2019s backing more than a quarter of the 22 films in competition for the Palme. Its odds of making it seven in a row are good. Some of the most hotly anticipated titles \u2014 including Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s \u201cAll of a Sudden,\u201d Korean auteur Na Hong-jin’s \u201cHope\u201d and James Gray\u2019s \u201cPaper Tiger\u201d \u2014 are Neon\u2019s.<\/p>\n Altogether, the indie distributor has nine films in Cannes. All, Quinn notes, they signed on for before the films’ Cannes invite.<\/p>\n \u201cI hate to break it to everyone but don\u2019t hate us for our good taste,\u201d says Quinn. \u201cWho\u2019s chasing who here? Thierry (Fr\u00e9maux, Cannes artistic director) is going to make up his own mind and we\u2019re going to make up our own mind. It just so happens that we agree.\u201d<\/p>\n Big studios are absent at Cannes, but Neon is everywhere<\/p>\n When Fr\u00e9maux announced the lineup<\/a> of this year\u2019s festival, he lamented the almost nonexistent presence of Hollywood\u2019s major studios. \u201cWhen the studios are less present in Cannes, they are less present full stop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While studio releases like Warner Bros.\u2019 \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d<\/a> and Universal\u2019s upcoming \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d<\/a> can be major Oscar players, a wide swath of the most original movies of the past decade have been released by specialty labels like Neon and A24.<\/p>\n Both have risen to prominence at international film festivals like Cannes and at the Oscars by focusing on filmmakers, not IP.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not rocket science and there\u2019s nothing secret about it,\u201d says Quinn. \u201cIt\u2019s pursuing the directors and films we want to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n Quinn had worked at Samuel Goldwyn Films and Magnolia Pictures before, in 2011, launching Radius, a boutique label with Harvey Weinstein. Though, at Neon, Quinn expected A24 to be his chief competition, he found himself often bidding against Netflix, on movies like Neon\u2019s first acquisition, the Margot Robbie-led \u201cI, Tonya\u201d and C\u00e9line Sciamma\u2019s \u201cPortrait of a Lady on Fire.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe did not outbid them but we out-passioned them,\u201d says Quinn.<\/p>\n Neon does produce films (like the upcoming \u201cI Love Boosters\u201d), but it largely sticks to distributing movies in North America, often with awards campaigns attached to their releases. It has boarded its Palme d\u2019Or winners \u2014 \u201cIt Was Just an Accident,\u201d \u201cAnora,\u201d \u201cAnatomy of a Fall,\u201d \u201cTriangle of Sadness,\u201d \u201cTitane\u201d and \u201cParasite\u201d \u2014 in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n Some were acquired in Cannes. Some, like \u201cParasite,\u201d<\/a> Neon boarded at the script stage. Quinn signed up for the body horror freak-out \u201cTitane\u201d even though the script made no sense to him. He just believed in its writer-director Julia Ducournau<\/a>. In that way, Neon is the ultimate anti-algorithm studio.<\/p>\n And yet faith in filmmakers and good taste have carried Neon to the greatest heights of Hollywood. Both \u201cParasite\u201d and \u201cAnora\u201d<\/a> won best picture at the Academy Awards after winning the Palme. Neon nearly swept the best international Oscar category last March, with four of the five nominees: the winning \u201cSentimental Value,\u201d \u201cSir\u0101t,\u201d \u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d and \u201cIt Was Just an Accident.\u201d<\/p>\n Breaking subtitle barriers <\/p>\n \u201cParasite\u201d famously became the first non-English-language film to win best picture<\/a> \u2014 a triumph for the \u201c1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,\u201d as Bong Joon Ho noted in his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n