At Cannes, Cate Blanchett tied Hollywood’s “risk-averse” moment to a concrete push for displaced voices—co-founding the Displacement Film Fund and unveiling this year’s grant recipients: Mo Amer, Annemarie Jacir, Akuol de Mabior, Bao Nguyen, and Rithy Panh.
When you try to enter a room at the Palais to interview Cate Blanchett. Cannes has a way of reminding you who holds the keys. A Cannes Film Festival employee stops you, then shakes her head and says it isn’t possible. “It’s with Cate Blanchett,” you explain. The employee lets you through immediately—pity and disdain mixed into the same look. the kind that suggests everyone knows who carries weight here.
Blanchett’s name, in Hollywood and beyond, doesn’t just open doors. It also helps pull filmmakers into the light—especially those whose work is rooted in displacement.
Alongside the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Blanchett co-founded the Displacement Film Fund. The initiative is designed to champion and fund displaced filmmakers—described by the fund as “filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people.” This week. Blanchett unveiled the year’s grant recipients: Mohammed “Mo” Amer. Annemarie Jacir. Akuol de Mabior. Bao Nguyen. and Rithy Panh.
A day earlier. in conversation at the festival. Blanchett had moved from films like *Carol* and *Tár* to a long fable about assholes she says was once told to her by Guillermo del Toro. Then. in a more intimate sit-down. she returned to the fund—talking process. selection. and what it means to keep stories from being pushed to the margins.
The people in the room mattered, too. Vietnamese American filmmaker Nguyen was there—alongside Blanchett—to discuss the fund and his own film. *How to Ride a Bike*. The film follows a Vietnamese dad who never learned to ride a bike. then after a failed attempt to teach his son. begins learning in secret. Amer was also part of the conversation, the Palestinian American comedian, writer, and director behind *Mo on Netflix*. Amer’s new project. *Return to Sender*. centers on a Palestinian stand-up and refugee whose global tour turns into a grinding experience of progressively senseless immigration restrictions.
Blanchett connected the fund’s origins to conversations at the Global Refugee Forum. where a group of people she named sat together and were asked to make a pledge. Ke Huy Quan. Echo Quan. Ayman Tamer. Koji Yanai. and Isaac Kwaku Fokuo were at the tables. and Koji had just produced Wim Wenders’s *Perfect Days*. Blanchett says an Afghan former refugee, an educator and activist, was also sharing stories. The moment. she recalls. made her ask a question blunt enough to become a plan: why weren’t these stories making it more into the mainstream. whether as documentary or features?.
So they didn’t just hope. They pledged.
Because, Blanchett said, displacement doesn’t stop filmmaking. She described taking the idea back to Rotterdam—where she is “old friends with Clare Stewart. who runs Rotterdam”—and finding alignment with the mission. From there. she said the approach was built to work like a small version of the MacArthur Genius Grants: not opened up for wide submissions. but designed to support midstream. experienced filmmakers. The goal was to help them bring their stories into the main frame rather than ghettoize them.
Film Forum, Blanchett said, has offered to host the first cohort. She added that there will be a qualifying round and a week of screenings in New York sometime in the fall.
When asked how filmmakers were chosen, Blanchett described a two-stage process: a nominations committee and a selection committee. For this year. she said the nominations and selection included Agnieszka Holland. Barbara Broccoli. Ke Huy Quan. and Jonas Rasmussen. who made *Flee*. The list moved from long to short. she said. and then the team “prayed” that the five selected filmmakers were available.
Amer’s response to his selection carried a mix of disbelief and busy excitement. “I said ‘no.’ I was like. ‘Just stop calling.’” He later clarified that when he got the call. it was an easy “yes.” He said he was a “big fan of Cate’s work. ” and called it “one of the most important things I’ll do this year.” Amer added that it was a privilege to be part of the collective—leaving behind a body of work that he hopes inspires others trying to break through.
Nguyen’s path to the fund looked different, but the urgency sounded the same. He said he and Ke Huy Quan share a mutual friend. and that Quan—coming from a Vietnamese refugee experience—had always been someone Nguyen wanted to work with. Nguyen talked about wanting to tell the Vietnamese American experience in a more nuanced way. “not just as. like. boat people or through the lens purely of the war.” He said that when Quan mentioned Cate was talking to the initiative. stories started flashing in his head. When the fund asked if he was available. Nguyen laid out what he said was an intense schedule: finish shooting by August. give footage to his editor. get married. and then return to review a rough cut while he is away.
Bao Nguyen also voiced the tight negotiation that comes with real life when art is funded—but life is already booked. “I promised my fiancé I wouldn’t be working,” he said. Still. he called the opportunity rare: to get financing and support of an artist he admires “so much like Cate. ” and to have the kind of agency that lets a project stay personal. He said he might move his wedding if he needs to.
Blanchett’s answer was immediate and lightly teasing: “Just change the pitch to a wedding film.”
As they moved through the conversation, another topic came up—one that has become unavoidable in entertainment right now. Blanchett had spoken yesterday about a tool she co-founded that helps artists consent. or not. to usage of their work for AI. She was asked what her own personal level of consent is.
Her answer was direct. “Yes, RSL Media.” She said she isn’t “AI-phobic,” and that she respects it as a tool, but “it needs to be treated with caution.” She described the current moment as one where AI use feels inevitable, while the real unresolved issue—she said—is consent and transparency.
Blanchett explained how she sees RSL Media functioning: it provides “a machine-readable way to activate and express consent.” She described consent as an exchange. saying she’s okay with asking. “I’m about to take your image. are you okay with that?” She said she’s okay with saying. “Yes. you can have it. but you need to speak to this rep or this lawyer. and we can negotiate it.” Then she drew the line clearly: “stealing isn’t negotiation.”.
The night also carried another kind of realism, the kind people rarely talk about in public. Blanchett was asked about a story she told at her talk—waking up at 3 a.m. staring at her wardrobe. and thinking about killing herself rather than going to work. When asked when she last felt that way. she didn’t offer a dramatic reveal so much as a private ritual. “Xanax. Gummies.” She said she usually pokes her husband awake the night before and goes. “What’s my process?!” Her husband. she said. replies. “You’ll be fine.”.
She then returned to the bigger picture—the anxiety of the world she described. where “there’s a lot of people waking up at 3 a.m.” But she also insisted that when you have an idea and a lot of other people adhere to it. that feeling can be “enlivening.” She recalled someone telling her recently that people “can’t just have hope. ” they have to have hope “with its sleeves rolled up.” In her telling. it comes down to action: “Get on and do it.” She said doing it collectively gives strength. and “the next night you sleep a little better.”.
Amer and Blanchett traded jokes without breaking the thread. Amer teased about “gummies.” Blanchett laughed and brought it back: “The world is an anxiety-making place at the moment.”
That anxiety is part of why she spoke about the industry in terms of risk. When asked about the “strange lack of Hollywood and studio films at Cannes this year. ” Blanchett said she had been inside the festival—she presided over the jury—and sees how themes emerge from exposure. not strategy. Cannes. she said. is a platform that exposes films. and filmmakers want them to thrive there. and speak to one another. “I don’t think it’s by design,” she said.
She said there’s a lot of Japanese and Spanish films in the lineup. She described seeing James Gray’s film the other night, and seeing Hirokazu Kore-eda’s films as well. She called *Paper Tiger* “beautiful” and said “America should be proud.”
Nguyen added a different kind of energy check. He said cinema is still alive when you come to Cannes, and for end-of-year fuel he just tells people, “Come to Cannes, watch a movie! Clap for six minutes!”
Asked about Thierry Frémaux saying Hollywood had been “quiet. ” Blanchett said it “feels people are risk-averse.” She pointed to filming in the U.K. and Central Europe. and said she thinks some people are nervous to activate production in certain parts of America because of a federal war on some states not adhering to the administration. She also emphasized that lower-budget films are still happening.
In her view, the industry’s conversations—around AI and displacement—happen first in the creative world, even if they don’t always stay in the public eye. She said the creative life is full of problems.
Later. she returned to her own workload: she said she has two highly anticipated projects. the Brady Corbet film and a Martha Stewart biopic. She said she has not yet met Martha Stewart. calling herself “a drooling fan.” She said there’s a great script and they’re working on it. but it’s early stages. Blanchett also said *The Brutalist* was made for 9 million bucks. and that Corbet is adamant about making films where he won’t give up control. She said the bigger the budget, the more caveats and unhelpful voices come with it.
Amer talked about pressure and collaboration on his own side of the industry. He said his series sometimes felt like that too, with pressures and multiple partners like A24 or Netflix. He said it’s normal collaboration, and everyone has opinions. But he framed it as the part that makes the work unique: the freedom to do something “completely unhinged” and put it out. in hopes it makes an impact. He added that when you’re dealing
with budgets like that, you have to be inventive and call in favors. He remembered a director telling him that people would do things for free. and that sometimes that means they get taken advantage of. Then he made his case for why he keeps going: “Telling stories is in my bones. It’s not about the money. It’s making something special. that then in turn makes you popular and then in turn gives you fame
and money.”.
Blanchett responded with a joke about glasses—then Amer laughed and agreed he wants to look good.
If there’s a through-line running across the conversation, it’s this: Hollywood’s caution doesn’t cancel the need for risk—especially the kind required to tell stories that displacement has forced into the shadows.
Blanchett’s Displacement Film Fund is built to fund that kind of work deliberately. without treating displaced filmmakers as an exception or a side project. And in a festival where her name can stop an interview—then open the door—she turned that influence into a structure: a pledge. a selection process. and a roster of five filmmakers she says already have proven track records. now getting a chance to move from the margins into the mainstream.
Cate Blanchett Displacement Film Fund International Film Festival Rotterdam Cannes Film Festival Mo Amer Annemarie Jacir Akuol de Mabior Bao Nguyen Rithy Panh displaced filmmakers AI consent RSL Media risk-averse Hollywood