These are amazing and nostalgic times. As we continue making history, let us return to 1997, the year of the 50th Annual Cannes Film Festival. Dr. Antonio Gellini, Founder and Chairman of World Film Institute, Family Film Awards and the Olympia Awards, enjoys a cool breeze off the coast in Cannes, France aboard the yacht of the legendary Merv Griffin along with fellow legends Bob Peterson, Al Pacino, John Paul DeJoria and Cher.
Dr. Gellini was celebrating the unprecedented success of the first Family Film Awards show on CBS which aired August 22nd, 1996, bringing together the best and brightest in Hollywood including over fifty A-List celebrities such as the masterful and highly comedic actor Bob Hope who won our Lifetime Achievement Award, awarded live that very night by Family Film Awards Executive Producer Dick Clark (business partner and close friend of Dr. Gellini) and the legendary actor Charlton Heston who was a host of the show. Among other awardees that night were the Executive Producer and also the Lead Actor of the hit film Apollo 13, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, respectively; Sandra Bullock; Jane Seymour; Neve Campbell; Tim Allen; Patrick Stewart and so many others.
The show was sponsored by Microsoft & garnered an astounding 700 Million views.
It was later that year in the spring that Dr. Gellini attended Cannes Film Festival with Mr Dick Clark himself; Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti; Family Film Awards Producer Art Kassel & his wife who was the Founder of The Hollywood Reporter and Co-Founder of the Family Film Awards; World Film Institute Senior Vice President & Family Film Awards Producer Joel Diamond and so many others. There they were greeted by then President of Cannes Film Festival and then President of France.
Last year, at the 69th Annual Cannes Film Festival, Dr Gellini returned to Cannes, France once again where he officially announced the winners of the 20th Anniversary Family Film Awards.
May 17 to 28, 2017 marks a very historic event – the 70th Annual Cannes Film Festival, where Dr. Gellini and other representatives of World Film Institute will return to Cannes once again to carry out the 21st Anniversary Family Film Awards on May 21st, 2017.
This event will be hosted by Alain Zirah and Anne Gomis and their company OFF de Cannes at the Intercontinental Carlton Cannes Hotel, where this year’s Family Film Awards will be awarded. May the best win.
To Be Continued….
