Occupy Cannes

“This time we will not get drunk, we will not throw blood on each other and we will not puke all over Cannes.”

It’s a noble vow, even if one doesn’t quite believe it. Holidays have a tendency to get out of hand – and this is a holiday, if not for the core Troma team, then at least for the fans, the devoted hangers-on who travel in order to support them, donating their time, unpaid, to the cause of getting the film world to take itself a little less seriously. Troma has had a presence at Cannes since 1971. This documentary, part festival exposé and part tribute to the world’s longest-lasting independent film company, follows events which took place at the 2013 and 2017 Cannes Film Festivals.

Without the big bucks marketing options available to the major studios, the only way Troma can compete on the Cannes stage is through the use of guerilla marketing techniques – which is where having all those loyal supporters comes in handy. After a short intro to the studio for the uninitiated, we plunge straight into the action, which is focused on efforts to sell Return To Nukem High. The film also sees them engage in their annual zombie march, and pay affectionate tribute to the recently departed Roger Ebert. Curiously, it’s the latter event which draws attention from a police officer, who says they’ll go to jail if caught with signs.

Trouble with the police isn’t new to anyone on the team, but there is some unhappiness at the fact that Pirates Of The Caribbean fans allowed to go round dressed like buccaneers, with fake guns and knives, when Troma fans are banned from going around in masks. it’s fortunate that the authorities are absent during a mooning dare in which studio head Lloyd Kaufman reveals a bit more than intended. When there is serious trouble, it comes from another angle, with one team member the victim of a homophobic attack which leaves several team members in tears. However daft their work may seem, it has always been dedicated, at least in part, to making the world a more playful, friendly and accepting place, so to have this happen to one of their own is deeply upsetting, prompting worries about the direction that the world is taking.

With 50% of the world’s media controlled by five global media conglomerates, there’s an urgency about the survival of Troma and all the smaller studios using similar models. Executive produced by the great Roger Corman, this film is all the more meaningful because Kaufman is 79 now, so one inevitably wonders what will happen to it all when he is gone. Hope comes in the form of his daughters. One, Charlotte Kaufman, one briefly famous as the mutant child of Tromeo And Juliet, serves here as DoP. Another, Lily Hayes Kaufman, directs. “I should just fess up to it. This isn’t a neutral documentary,” she says. But that’s part of the point. Not neutral but honest, reflexive. Something the big studios will never be.

Cannes glitters, but the celebrated parts of it are always just out of reach – a red carpet stretched out on the other side of a busy road, celebrities ascending famous steps behind a horde of undead. This isn’t a film for those who want to coo at A-listers. It’s for people who are angry about corporate politics intruding on art. It’s for people who love cinema for its own sake. It’s for freaks and mutants and queers and outcasts of every kind who are ready to party, down in the gutter with Toxie & co, looking at the stars.

Reviewed on: 22 Nov 2025