Cannes Man 1997

Frank ‘Rhino’ Rhinoslavsky is a somewhat clueless part-time cab driver in New York City who dreams of breaking into the film world, but he believes the path to status must start at the very top—as a writer. His big break arrives in Cannes, France, where he travels to deliver props to Troma, Inc. and stumbles into a chance encounter that could change everything.

There he meets Sy Lerner, a self-styled chronicler of the industry’s follies who many interviewees in this mockumentary paint as a perpetual loser who has cost executives a fortune with his schemes. Lerner, ever the showman, makes a bold bet with a friend: he can take any ordinary person off the street and turn them into the biggest success in town. Frank becomes his latest project, and the plan is simple enough to sound almost ridiculous—let others do all the legwork while Frank reaps the aura of success.

Lerner takes Frank under his wing, coaching him on appearance, how to handle interviews, and how to stay deliberately vague. The mentor then engineers a sensational yet hollow opportunity: appoint Frank as the writer of a new movie—one that, crucially, does not exist. Despite the obvious holes in the premise, the industry buys into the fiction. Before long, Frank is renamed to fit the hype—“Frank Rhino”—and a flood of attention pours in. Directors, producers, and famous faces suddenly want to be part of this emergent story.

The buzz intensifies as interviews and press appearances multiply, all predicated on a screenplay that never existed and a writer who never truly earned that title. Frank becomes the Cannes Man, elevating a sham into a sellable legend with astonishing speed, and he doesn’t even have to deliver a real script to keep the momentum going. The festival atmosphere—glamorous, chaotic, and hungry for fresh narratives—becomes the stage for a real-time experiment in hype and perception.

Notable guests appear as themselves, lending further credibility to the farce: Johnny Depp and Jim Jarmusch pop in as part of the world that treats illusion as currency, underscoring the satire of fame in the film industry. The Cannes Film Festival serves as the perfect backdrop for a meditation on deals, dreams, and the thin line between genuine achievement and manufactured myth.

It’s where deals get made, producers get laid, and stars get paid. It’s where all the movie industry meets to buy and sell all the movies on the planet. And it’s where the art of the deal can be filled with more laughs than the deal itself.

As the mockumentary unfolds, the audience is invited to observe how hype can elevate someone with no real credentials, and how a cleverly orchestrated persona can pull the levers of an entire industry. The story remains cheeky and pointed, offering a sly look at PR, perception, and the appetite for sensational narratives in cinema.