Cannes got its own cliff-hanger ending on Saturday, the final day of the 78th film festival, when a power outage, apparently caused by deliberate sabotage, shut down the power grid serving the city and much of the surrounding region. From 10:00 am on, the outage disrupted screenings, forced cafes and restaurants to close, or shift to cash-only payments, and even caused chaos on the streets as traffic lights winked off. The blackout only caused minor disruption at the Palais, the festival headquarters, with generators kicking in to restore power. The press conference for Kelly Reichardt’s Mastermind, with the director and cast members Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal, went ahead as planned at 10.15 am local time. In a statement, the festival said the Palais’ independent power supply meant that tonight’s closing ceremony would not be affected.

A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, threatening to jeopardize the Cannes Film Festival’s closing celebrations, including the much-anticipated Palme d’Or ceremony. Police said they have opened an investigation into possible arson. Power was restored hours before the ceremony, around 3 p.m. local time, as music began blasting again from beachfront speakers. The end of the blackout was greeted with loud cheers from locals. Earlier, about 160,000 households in the Alpes-Maritimes department lost electricity after a high-voltage line fell Saturday morning, electricity network operator RTE said on X.

A suspicious fire hit the city of Cannes with a widespread loss of power Saturday morning — just hours ahead of the film festival’s closing ceremony. Several movies were wiped from the schedule, but the majority of the iconic event, including the final bash, will not be affected because organizers swiftly found an alternative power source. ”A power outage is currently affecting the city of Cannes and surrounding areas,” the festival said in a statement shared with The Post. ”The Palais des Festivals has switched to an independent power supply, allowing all scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, to proceed as planned and under normal conditions.