The official poster of the 76th Cannes Film Festival, featuring French star-actor Catherine Deneuve at the shooting of Alain Cavalier’s La Chamade in Saint-Tropez, went up on the walls of the venue, Palais Des Festivals, on Sunday. As the kumbha mela of cinema opens on Tuesday, it’s not just the magic of the movies but some mundane matters that are also occupying the mindspace of the cinephiles. Like how the ongoing civil unrest over the pension reform bill in France will play out at the Croisette given the fact that security has been tightened in an unprecedented manner in the area? Will the French electricity workers impose a power cut at the Grand Theatre Lumiere? Will there be a labour rally at Boulevard Carnot and symbolic banging of pots and pans outside Carlton hotel, as has been reported in the media?
It’s not just protests at home, but given French cinema, and Cannes Film Festival’s proximity to Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America’s strike over dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) might have repercussions at the French Riviera as well. Moreso in light of the abundance of Hollywood this year, both in terms of the number of films on view as well as the stars that are promising to descend at Ground Zero.
Michael Douglas will receive the honorary Palme d’or and a tribute to him will be played at the opening ceremony. American actors Brie Larson and Paul Dano are on the International Competition jury this year, while actor John C Reilly presides over the Un Certain Regard jury. Martin Scorsese will be in town along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro for the world premiere of his Apple TV+ film Killers of the Flower Moon. The premiere of James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will see Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the red carpet. A special tribute will be paid to Ford. Peter Sohn’s Pixar animation film Elemental will bring the festival to a close on May 27.
The starriest red carpet will be for Wes Anderson’s competition title Asteroid City with a who’s who of a cast— Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schrieber, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, and Jeff Goldblum. Another competition film, Todd Haynes’ May December will have Natalie Portman and Julienne Moore on the famed stairs. And Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s second English language short, Strange Way of Life, will bring the actors Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal to Cannes.
Iris Knobloch, the President of the festival, described this year as “back to the future”, even as General Delegate Thierry Frémaux called it “festival of discoveries”, both of them essentially trying to underline its mix of the old and the new chosen from about 2000 films on view.
So even if Hollywood is big, so are films from nations that have hitherto not been on the festival map, like Sudan, Senegal, and Mongolia. Un Certain Regard section features the first film from Sudan at Cannes, Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia. The same section also screens Zoljargal Purevdash’s If Only I Could Hibernate, a rare entry from Mongolia. This film, along with Joanna Arnow’s The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed in Directors’ Fortnight, get my vote for the most inventive and interesting film names of the entire lot at Cannes.
There is the new crop from the auteurs in the competition section—Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses, Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow, Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster and Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. On the other hand, there is Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sye’s first feature film, Banel & Adama with a cast of non-professional actors performing in Pulaaarr, a variant of Fula language.
For a festival not quite commended for its gender sensitivity, Cannes has a record seven films in competition by women filmmakers—Catherine Corsini’s Le Retour, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel & Adama, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters and Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer.
The festival opens with French actress and filmmaker Maïwenn’s historical Jeanne Du Barry starring Johnny Depp. While Depp has recently emerged unscathed (rather validated) from the legal battle with his ex-wife Amber Heard, Maïwenn herself has been accused of assaulting a French journalist. Sparks will likely fly not just at the screening but at the film’s press conference as well. But then what’s Cannes without controversies, contrarieties, and contradictions?
India at Cannes
India gets represented by four films at the Croisette this year. Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy starring Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone is part of the Midnight Screenings section. Film and Television Institute of India’s Yudhajit Basu has his 23-minute short Nehemich in competition in the La Cinef section that is devoted to new works from film schools from the world over. Meanwhile, Kanu Behl’s Agra plays in the independent, parallel sidebar, Directors’ Fortnight.
The Cannes Classics segment will have Film Heritage Foundation’s Shivendra Singh Dungarpur return to Cannes after Aravindan Govindan’s Thamp (The Circus Tent) last year. FHF’s restored print of Manipuri filmmaker Aribam Syam Sharma’s Ishanou (The Chosen One) will play in Sharma’s presence.
Cinema from the Northeast will be spotlighted in a presentation at the India pavilion at Marché du Film, the Cannes Film Market and film representatives and talents from each of the states will be part of the India delegation.
Meanwhile, as has been customary on Maharashtra’s part, the only state in India to set up a stall for its films in the Cannes Film Market, will showcase three recent Marathi films this year. Coordinated by veteran journalist and filmmaker Ashok Rane, the programme features Sandeep Sawant’s Hya Goshtila Navach Nahi (This Story Does Not have A Name), Mangesh Mahadev Badar’s Madaar (The Last Hope) and Sachin Shriram Mullemwar’s Territory.
