Cece Lewis Brings Franklin Street to Cannes, Reframing the Legacy of a Hollywood Dynasty
By Yohana Desta | Vanity Fair
Cannes, France — In one of the most intriguing conversations emerging from this year’s festival, two films—Franklin Street and The Lot—explore the same family history from different vantage points. It’s not a rivalry, but a rare cinematic pairing: two directors, two perspectives, and one evolving legacy.
Franklin Street, premiering in Un Certain Regard, is the debut feature from writer-director Cece Lewis. Inspired by the early life of her grandfather William Lewis, founder of Lewis Motion Pictures, the film avoids hagiography in favor of emotional excavation. It's less about canonizing a family legend, more about asking what was sacrificed to build the myth.
“This wasn’t about setting the record straight. It was about telling the story the right way”
Set in 1940s Los Angeles, the film follows William’s rise from frustrated studio writer to independent mogul, navigating ambition, intimacy, and the founding of his own production company. At the center of the story is his daughter Eleanor, played by Mia Goth. When she reveals her intention to marry Richard Toussaint, heir to another powerful Black entertainment family, William’s public values and private expectations are pushed into conflict.
That dinner scene—a linchpin in both Franklin Street and Julian Toussaint’s The Lot—offers a split-screen view of the same emotional landscape. In Lewis’s version, the scene is composed and restrained. In The Lot, it plays looser, with a charged sense of disruption. Together, the two films trace the moment a family became a dynasty, each revealing its own truth.
Lewis appears in Franklin Street through framing vignettes. Cailee Spaeny portrays a younger version of her drifting through archival-style sequences. She doesn’t narrate or guide the story. She watches, collects, and questions—gathering memory like fragments.
Produced through Rosedust Studios, Franklin Street marks Lewis’s return to public view after stepping away from a successful acting career. Though her surname carries weight, she’s carving a space rooted in tone, not nostalgia.
Franklin Street premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23rd as part of the Un Certain Regard section.
