HBO’s Name Up in Lights at Film Festival : Trends: One reason for its high profile at Cannes is the exploding international market for quality entertainment.

It’s a sign of changing times in the entertainment industry that one of the most prominent American companies at this year’s film festival--even more than some of the major studios--is a cable TV company.

HBO, the Time Warner-owned premium channel once known mostly for boxing and comedy events, is represented on three fronts at Cannes. It has a film in the prestigious director’s fortnight competition, it has a new deal for selling its cable movies abroad, and it helped sponsor the hottest event in town, Thursday’s $2,500-a-plate AmFAR fund-raiser that featured actress Elizabeth Taylor.

HBO Chairman Michael Fuchs is even ensconced in the exclusive Hotel du Cap, alongside such film industry heavyweights as TriStar Pictures Chairman Mike Medavoy, independent producer Joe Roth and actor Sylvester Stallone.

One reason for HBO’s high profile is the exploding international market for quality entertainment programs. The company just signed a deal with Odyssey Distributors to sell its cable movies overseas. The agreement was toasted at a black-tie party at Hotel du Cap on Wednesday night.

Fuchs says there’s strong foreign theatrical interest in star-driven cable movies such as “Stalin” and “And the Band Played On,” which HBO will air in September. Foreign agreements help pay the costs of the productions.

“HBO has pretty much developed its own identity,” he said at the party. “We’ve gone into practically every area of the entertainment business.”

Scenes from “Band,” based on the Randy Shilts book about AIDS, were shown here last night in conjunction with the AmFAR fund-raiser. Fuchs also attended a mobbed news conference with Taylor and two of the film’s stars, Ian McKellen and Phil Collins, as well as the dinner in neighboring Mougins.

The HBO entry in the director’s fortnight, “Mi Vida Loca,” represents one of its occasional forays into theatrical filmmaking. (Showtime also has a movie at the festival, Jim McBride’s “The Wrong Man.”) HBO produced the picture about Mexican-American female gangs by director Allison Anders for about $3 million. It will be distributed in the United States by Sony Classics.

HBO is the largest U.S. pay TV service, with 17.6 million subscribers. It had a profit last year of $215 million on revenue of $1.4 billion and is now the most profitable TV network in the United States.

Some analysts contend that technological advances, such as video-on-demand, could make pay channels such as HBO obsolete in the next decade. But Fuchs says the company is well positioned for change because Time Warner is the second-largest American cable operator and a leader in the technological revolution.

Part of HBO’s strategy calls for producing more original programming. It is also developing theme nights. The company is billing its back-to-back showings of “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Dream On” on Wednesdays as “The funniest hour on TV.” And Thursdays and Saturdays are movie nights.

“Our future totally depends on where the technology takes us,” Fuchs said. “But we are not a company that is frightened by any of this.”