Movers and shakers of the film world are boarding yachts or jets to head for the once sleepy Mediterranean seaside town of Cannes for a 12-day party that also serves as a film festival, with this year’s lineup heavy on drama and light on humour.
The 67th Cannes Film Festival gets under way on Wednesday with 18 films showing in the main competition for the Palme d’Or prize awarded by a majority female jury headed by New Zealand director Jane Campion, the only woman ever to receive the top Cannes award for her 1993 film The Piano.
Another 20 films are in the Un Certain Regard strand, plus dozens more in the Directors’ Fortnight, the Critics’ Week and other festival showcases. And, providing the customary dash of controversy, the opening film – Grace of Monaco - has been denounced as a “farce” by the late princess’s three children.
“Cannes is insane, very intense and fun,” said Canadian director David Cronenberg, a Cannes regular whose Maps to the Stars starring Twilight teen vampire series idol Robert Pattinson is in competition.
For Turkish director Nuri Ceylan, whose Winter Sleep is in competition and whose films have regularly won awards at Cannes, “this is an opportunity to showcase the country and its film business because this is where the heart of the industry beats”.
“The interesting thing for me is how much this lineup relies really on ‘Old Europe’ and America – there are a few Asian films, no German films, very few from Scandinavia and not much from Eastern Europe or Russia,” said Scott Roxborough, Berlin bureau chief for The Hollywood Reporter.
The festival is also known for controversy and already has one for this year: its opening film, Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as American actor Grace Kelly who married Prince Rainier of Monaco and died after crashing her car in 1982 in hills above the principality, not far to the east of Cannes.
The Monaco royal family weighed in, calling the film a “farce”. Prince Albert and his sisters – Kelly’s children Caroline and Stephanie said that the trailer “confirms the totally fictional nature of this film”.
A whiff of scandal is good for business and Cannes has reliably produced its share ever since the 18-year-old bikinied Brigitte Bardot allowed Hollywood leading man Kirk Douglas to play with her hair in a famous 1953 photo shoot on the beach.
The festival is a media magnet and Cronenberg, who won a jury prize at Cannes in 1996 for his film-noir Crash, says that is exactly what independent producers, like him, want. “As an independent [production] we can’t afford to send the cast all over the world … (So) it’s a fantastic venue to promote a movie.”
The “wow” and name-recognition factors for Cannes are what seem to set it apart. “It has a magical ring,” said British screenwriter Stephen Beresford, whose film Pride will be shown out of competition.
“When you ring your mum and say your film’s got into a film festival, when you say ‘Cannes’, she knows what you mean.”
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2014.
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