Forget the movies! The biggest buzz at the Cannes Film Festival so far centers on dueling parties between Graydon Carter and his former magazine, Vanity Fair.

Like its most recent Oscars party, Vanity Fair is taking a downsized approach this year in the south of France, Page Six Hollywood has learned. Carter, meanwhile, is holding his affair at the superluxe Hôtel du Cap with the backing of a Silicon Valley billionaire and Hollywood’s biggest connector.   

Said a source, “VF is doing a smaller dinner with a cocktail following,” without elaborating on the number of guests. “It’s smaller than in years gone by, but very intentional.”

Insiders say new VF topper Mark Guiducci “has a lot to prove” after raising eyebrows at his first major event leading the masthead. The VF Oscars party faced challenges including a slashed guest list that enraged some Hollywood insiders, and oddly harsh “grey carpet” lighting that reportedly left at least one star “on her phone looking at her pictures and shrieking at her publicist.”

Sources told Page Six Hollywood as Cannes kicked off that former VF chief Carter’s Tuesday night bash looks poised to be the fest’s best A-list gathering — especially since he pulled off a coup by securing the festival’s most exclusive location and bringing on CAA rainmaker Bryan Lourd as a co-host with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. (The tech titan, whose company is poised for a massive IPO this year, is making his entrée into Hollywood with the party.)

Vanity Fair, meanwhile, will host the Condé Nast glossy’s bash at a reimagined version of the classic seafood spot Tétou, that’s now adjacent to the Port Pierre Canto and far from the Croisette’s main stretch. 

Guiducci was said to be frustrated that his staff could only secure a venue by the port, but was placated when one minion assured him that Tétou holds historic significance. The original Tétou opened in 1918 and was famed for its Bouillabaisse, attracting A-listers from Picasso to Mick Jagger and Orson Welles to Sofia Coppola, who’d been dining there since she was a kid. But the famed restaurant, up the coast in neighboring Golfe-Juan, was torn down in 2018.

This month, private equity firm Trispan — financial backer of the gigunda marg-and-guac spots Rosa Mexicano as well as the café chain Maman and Southern eateries Yardbird — announced the reopening of a new Tétou as a flagship location, (perhaps hinting at an expansion — Vegas, anyone!?). 

French Vanity Fair was apparently known to historically host its dinners at Tétou, and we hear that Guiducci is hosting his dinner with the mag’s international editors. 

Some weren’t convinced the parties were even in the same league. “Having a party on a Saturday night at the port in Cannes is like having a party in Jersey City,” sniffed one veteran Cannes VIP.

As Guiducci hails from Vogue, we’re told the mag’s guest list leans heavily on fashionistas, socialites and influencers, but a source insisted that there will be a healthy turnout from the film biz. While the soiree has a hefty $500K price tag, it’s still half of what Vanity Fair spent on its 2023 fete spearheaded by Radhika Jones, the last time the mag hosted one of its perennial Cannes bashes. (That party fell on the same night Martin Scorsese‘s “Killers of the Flower Moon” debuted, and an epic rain storm put a damper on VF’s $1M Du Cap gala.) 

Carter, the former Spy and Air Mail boss, also made a rare misstep in 2023. That’s when he teamed up with Warner Bros. Discovery to toast the studio’s 100th anniversary in Cannes and wound up co-hosting his shindig with embattled CEO David Zaslav, who ignored his advisors’ pleas to abandon the glitzy party as a WGA strike unfolded back home. (The NY Times wrote in a piece at the time: “Was this really the right moment for Zaslav to spend a fortune on an over-the-top party at a posh hotel on the French Riviera? It all seemed sad, and also ridiculous.”) 

Carter’s fete this year is seen as the place to be over the weekend: Insiders say that bash boasts a guest list stacked with bona fide movie stars including George Clooney.

But there’s no bad blood between Carter and Guiducci. Carter made a rare appearance at VF’s Oscars dinner, and we hear that both Guiducci and Carter have been invited to attend each other’s respective bashes. (At least Guiducci may have landed the better end of that deal.)