A still from Abderrahmane Sissako’s ‘Black Tea’ which enjoys its UK premiere at the festival
The festival, presented by The Royal African Society, will run from 25 October to 3 November during the UK’s celebration of Black History Month and will showcase the best of African cinema in Europe.
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Many women-directed gems were snubbed, in favor of a story about a sex worker written and directed by a male filmmaker.
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This year’s Palm Dog winner Kodi with his director and co-star Laetitia Dosch
The Palm Dog winners, that is…
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A still from ‘Salted Skins’ by Nicolas Fattouh, courtesy of the DFI
It’s all in a week’s work for the Doha Film Institute, the greatest cinematic organization in the MENA region.
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A still from ‘The Girl with the Needle’, courtesy of the Festival de Cannes
There is a trick to this festival. If you stand still long enough in Cannes — something a bit difficult to do on a weekend as crowds are bustling all around you — you’ll run into everyone who is anyone in the film universe.
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A still from ‘Maria’ by Jessica Palud
Plus, their selection of short films from all over the world and an immersive program which includes fantastic works featuring the voices of Cate Blanchett, Indira Varma, Tahar Rahim and Colin Farrell.
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‘Rhapsody in August’ by Akira Kurosawa (1991) © Shochiku Co., Ltd. / Kurosawa Prod. – Graphic design © Hartland Villa
Turns out there are lots of winning people and moments on this year’s Croisette, and that’s before the festival has even started. And finally, we have a poster for the 77th edition of the festival!
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A still from ‘The Second Act’, photo © Chi-Fou-Mi Productions
Plus, the festival releases its latest guidelines to make the event more eco-friendly.
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Plus Atom Egoyan fresh from the Berlinale and Academy Award nominated sound designer Martín Hernández, all to give Masterclasses while in Qatar.
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An empty red carpet means anticipation. No red carpet means defeat.
I wrote a letter to the Festival de Cannes. I asked it to help save cinema by not going online.
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A still from ‘Family Romance, Llc’ by Werner Herzog
In ‘Family Romance, Llc’ Werner Herzog finds a new way to work through the difficulties life throws our way — outsource them to an agency specializing in family connections. He does it with his usual flair for our human ridiculousness and making the impossible seem real. During the junket following the screening, I loved listening to my esteemed colleagues’ confused explanations of stories they thought they’d seen like this one in documentaries, or even completely convinced this was a reality film, instead of fiction. And Herzog himself quite perfectly, calmly and smoothly shooting down each and all of their perplexed ideas.
‘Family Romance, Llc’ was a Special Screening at this year’s Festival de Cannes.
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Julianne Moore in ‘The Staggering Girl’ by Luca Guadagnino
There has been a certain je ne sais quoi in the air here in Cannes, and I wasn’t able to quite put my finger on it. It bothered me, someone always good at defining a moment, person or place, that I couldn’t put that feeling into words. Then I attended the press conference for Luca Guadagnino’s ‘The Staggering Girl’ and I had a ‘EUREKA!” moment. So bear with me for a moment while I get to that…
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Me after my nightmare trip… NO! Just kidding, it’s Iggy Pop in a still from ‘The Dead Don’t Die’.
Yes, there was a flash taxi strike at the airport in Nice yesterday, just as my flight was getting in. No, they were not prepared for an action by all taxi drivers to block the roads accessing the airport, so no vehicle of any sort could get in or out of the airport. Yes, there is a tramway track recently built which reaches terminal 3 but no, there was no tram traveling on it. So everyone had to walk for miles, with luggage in tow, under the sweltering sun, to reach an overcrowded train, through overpasses and station underpasses (read: lots and lots of stairs) mimicking the zombies in Jim Jarmusch’s Cannes opening night film.
Welcome to the glamorous life of a journalist covering the Festival de Cannes! If I hear one more time what a wonderful opportunity it is for me to be doing what I do, I’ll strangle someone. Then, I might actually begin to get the attention I deserve.
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I know, most critics go to the Festival de Cannes looking forward to the Competition titles and maybe will grant themselves the joy of viewing the Un Certain Regard selection. But I’ll admit I’m more of a sidebar person, and while I will view a few great titles in the main lineups, my craves lay more in the Quinzaine (Directors’ Fortnight) and Semaine de la Critique.
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Alain Delon, photo courtesy of the Festival de Cannes
As a young girl, I remember watching anything that had Alain Delon in it. I had a super crush on him and, lucky me, no film of his was deemed inappropriate by my parents. So along with Luchino Visconti’s ‘The Leopard’ and ‘Rocco and his Brothers’, I also caught Delon in films like ‘The Swimming Pool’, ‘Zorro’ and yes, even ‘The Concorde… Airport ‘79’. In fact, from the latter I required that a friend of the family who knew how to knit make me a royal blue crew neck wool sweater that looked just like his. I would find you a photo but I would have to watch that entire film all over again and well, I’ve moved on from my pre-pubescent crush. And my taste in film has highly improved.
But Alain Delon remains the fascinating man, the sultry sex symbol that could even steal women away from Mick Jagger. And this year’s he’s the Festival de Cannes honorary Palme d’Or recipient. Kudos to the festival for finally getting the reclusive actor to accept their coveted lifetime award.
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La Pointe courte © 1994 Agnès Varda and her children - Montage and design : Flore Maquin
As I learned at this year’s Qumra, held by the Doha Film Institute, the grand dame of French New Wave cinema Agnès Varda was all about finding the stories, the viewpoints that no one else would bother with. The Festival de Cannes, in its poster just unveiled for the 72nd edition of the festival, pays homage to La Varda but also to her indomitable spirit by showing the filmmaker on her first cinematic venture perched high up on a platform, atop the shoulders of a crew technician. She’s is looking to capture that image, that viewpoint which no one else would have even thought about. She is Varda, in all her perfectly humble and adventurous attitude. The same Varda who asked me, to my utter disbelief, if I’d liked her “little film” a few years ago in Cannes.
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Hanaa Issa with filmmaker Elia Suleiman at a DFI event
Ever since its creation in 2010 on the peninsular country of Qatar, the Doha Film Institute has been revolutionizing cinema in the Region. The word “revolution” is never a sign of good things in the Arab world and yet at DFI, they should welcome the term when it comes to describing the work they’ve been doing almost singlehandedly to create and foster a healthy cinema culture in the Arab world. And beyond.
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Guillermo Del Toro, courtesy of the Marrakech International Film Festival
If ever there was an upcoming event that felt outrageously exciting, almost too jam packed with greatness (could there ever be such a thing!) it’s the Marrakech International Film Festival — which will take place from November 30th to December 8th, 2018 in the beautiful Moroccan city. Now in its 17th edition, the festival took a year off in 2017 and is coming back stronger, better and more action-packed than ever.
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Bouli Lanners, flanked by Justine Lacroix, right and Sarah Henochsberg in Claire Burger's 'C'est ça l'amour'
Think back to the last time a film redefined love for you. That felt like a magical discovery then, didn't it? For me, cinema exists at its best when it does something that changes me -- and of course I want that change to be for the better.
In Claire Burger's touching follow up to her Cannes Camera d'Or winner 'Party Girl' -- which she co-directed with Marie Amachoukeli and Samuel Theis -- I found a new fatherhood role model. For a woman whose own father was at best unavailable throughout my teenage years and beyond, Burger's wondrous father figure Mario (played by the spellbinding Bouli Lanners) is a revelation and offers a sense of newfound hope. His quest to be a good father to the young Frida (the perfectly rebellious Justine Lacroix) and the teenage Kiki (cool and flirty Sarah Henochsberg) takes the audience on a journey of discovery along with the characters.
But 'C'est ça l'amour' is a multilayered film and so it's no surprise that, among quite a few strong and beautiful stories featured in this year's Giornate degli Autori line up, Burger's film ended up walking away with the top prize -- the GdA Director's Award.
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Actress Behnaz Jafari with filmmaker Jafar Panahi in a still from '3 Faces'
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Actually, this edition of the Festival de Cannes turned out to be a missed opportunity, for media and juries alike to truly take charge of the #TimesUp movement and make of it a lasting course instead of a passing trend. Yes, there were stairs filled with women in pretty dresses, there were hotlines that we could call if we felt threatened or harassed, but ultimately the big prizes went to the big boys. As they have for every edition of the festival, except once, in 1993 when Jane Campion made history as the first and only woman to win the Palme d’Or.
Yet personally, I loved Cannes more than ever this year. I had a soft place to fall, in the form of a wonderful group of friends I spent my free time with, eating dinners we cooked together and drinking our morning coffee back at our cozy apartment with one breathtaking view. I mean, just look at the Disney fireworks for 'SOLO: A Star Wars Story' display from our terrace!
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