This year at the Palais des Festival, Saatchi & Saatchi will celebrate a quarter century of highlighting new directing talent and providing young directors with a global platform. The 25th edition promises the Cannes audience an un-missable, hour-long experience in this one-off show.  

To mark 25 years of the New Directors’ Showcase, Saatchi & Saatchi have invited 25 directors from their NDS alumni to participate in an experiment in film, which will be premiered in Cannes on Thursday 25 June.  Each one of the 25 directors involved in the 25x25 film will be revealed every day leading up to Cannes Lions on Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide: http://saatchi.com/en-us/new-directors-showcase/#play-video 

Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Directors’ Showcase (NDS) was conceived back in 1991 when the agency was invited by Cannes Lions to host a seminar.  An idea was conceived for a Showcase that would reflect the agency’s reputation for nurturing and developing new directing talent.  The late Paul Arden, a legendary ECD who famously authored the best-selling “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be”, presented the inaugural NDS which set the bar high for the ensuing years, with a roll call that included David Cronenberg, Daniel Kleinman and Jake Scott – famous names that are all now synonymous with great filmmaking.  In the 25 years that have followed that fledgling event, the NDS has quite rightly earned itself a reputation as a supporter of new talent.  Over the years the NDS has continued to grow in popularity, and each year is one of the most anticipated events at the Palais des Festivals during Cannes Lions.

NDS has a reputation for producing breath-taking live shows to introduce the Showreel of New Directors.  The stage at the Palais des Festivals has been taken over by flying robots (Quadrotors) which predated the rise of the drone, Professor Richard Dawkins turning into a meme, Tony Kaye emerging from a coffin, David la Chappelle choreographing a team of street dancers, and last year’s world first of kitting out the audience with Studio XO’s revolutionary sensory wristbands, designed to measure the emotional reaction of the audience to the films they watched.  In 2010 the Saatchi & Saatchi remit of “Nothing Is Impossible” was achieved when Paul Arden was metaphorically bought back to life on stage in the form of a hologram.  

This year the Saatchi & Saatchi NDS honours a quarter century of supporting emerging directors.  In a move away from technological firsts, the 2015 event will put the emphasis firmly on the directors’ talents: 25 NDS alumni will be featured in Cannes, and will pass the baton to the class of 2015.  

The 25^th edition of the NDS will take place at 10am on Thursday 25^th June at le Palais des Festivals in Cannes during Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.  An audience of 2,300 Cannes Lions delegates will watch a Showreel featuring what the Saatchi & Saatchi creative community believes to be some of the most exciting new names to watch in the field of directing.

Andy Gulliman, Curator of the New Directors’ Showcase (NDS) and Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide Director of Film and Content commented:  “For the past decade I’ve been part of the team of Saatchi & Saatchi’s creative leaders.  This group selects the annual NDS Showreel, and I have curated the Showreel for the past 2 years.  Reflecting upon the wealth of directing talent in an archive that goes back to 1991, it’s an amazing visual library with contributions from directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Dawn Shadforth, Jake Scott, Daniel Wolfe and Ivan Zacharias, who now are firmly enlisted in the directing hall of fame. Their directorial styles were an influence then, and continue to be an influence now.  With the NDS 25 year anniversary, we would like to celebrate the rich archive and say a big thank you to all the directors who helped to make the event a must on the Cannes Lions calendar."  

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