History

From 4^th to 13^th Sep­tem­ber 1998.
For its Open­ing, the Fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ed the cen­te­nary of the birth of George Gersh­win. The new Short Film com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion was launched but had to be closed down in 2004… due to a lack of com­peti­tors! By way of anec­dote, Michael Dou­glas, to whom the Fes­ti­val was pay­ing trib­ute, met the woman who was to become his wife, Cather­ine Zeta-Jones, in Deauville, where she was pro­mot­ing Mar­tin Camp­bell’s The Mask of Zor­ro. Steven Spiel­berg also came, with his fam­i­ly, to present Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan, of which two sequences had been shot, dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year’s Fes­ti­val, at the near­by Amer­i­can Ceme­tery at Colleville-sur-Mer.