CANNES 2010

The 2010 Cannes Film Festival – the great cinema show in full swing

 

From our own correspondent in Cannes,

Joanna Tachmintzis

This year’s film festival at Cannes, though somewhat smaller than previous years, opened with the usual glamour, with the director Tim Burton as President of the Jury, which has eight more prominent members (his own 3D film ‘Alice in Wonderland ‘ has recently been released ). The cinema industry and cinephiles are  here in Cannes in great numbers, alongside many tourists, though the estimated 10.000 accredited visitors to the Festival fall short of the 16.000 two years ago, before the financial crisis.

The official Competition of this 63rd edition of the festival was opened by Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood”, already released in cinemas worldwide and therefore not competing itself. The stars, Russel Crowe and Cate Blanchett were of course on the red carpet in front of the Palais du Cinema on the opening night as were Kristin Scott Thomas, the Anglo-French actress who is the presenter in the Festival’s opening and closing gala events, Benicio El Toro, Giovanna Mezzogiorno (both on the Jury),Salma Hayek and many others. This year 18 feature films are competing for the ‘Palme d’Or’( the ‘Golden Palm’)as compared to 22 two years ago, but a further 18 films are being officially screened ‘Hors Competition’ (outside the competition).

Since many of the films in competition eventually end up in the cinema or TV screens, I find even more interesting the other sections of the main festival, and in particular ‘Un Certain Regard’ (‘A Certain Look’) , dedicated to lesser known film makers, or more innovative films, or worthy films  which for some reason are not selected for the main Competition- 19 in total this year. The opening film for this section was “The Strange Case of Angelica” by the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, screened in the presence of the energetic 102-year old veteran director. It is a strange but wonderfully  filmed story of a photographer who falls in love with a beautiful dead woman he has to photograph, and who is then haunted by her ghost, in a story merging dream and reality. De Oliveira wrote the script himself and it is an idea he has been wanting to make into a  film for the last 50 years.

An important parallel event, under the overall umbrella of the Cannes Film Festival, is the ‘Quinzaine des Realisateurs’ (the ‘Directors Fortnight’), organised by the SRF, the Association of Film Directors. This 42nd edition was opened by an amazing and inspiring documentary film “Benda Bilili!”, by the new French directors Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye. It is the story of the discovery of a group of talented street musicians in Kinshasha, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are in dire poverty and physically handicapped but full of joy, humour and optimism in spite of it, and who write and play fantastic music. They released a CD with their music last year and were present in Cannes, in their wheelchairs for the screening of the  film and to play a concert. Twenty –two  feature-length films and nine shorts are presented in the ‘Quinzaine’, and four more films, including Benda Bilili, are shown in special screenings.

During the ‘Quinzaine des Realisateurs’ every year, a special award,“La Carosse d’Or” (The Golden Coach) is given  to a Director for their life’s work. This year it was awarded to the French director Agnes Varda (who received the Cesar Award last year for her documentary ‘La Plage d’Agnes’), and for the event, she chose to screen her cult film from 1969 “Lions Love.... and Lies”. Filmed in Los Angeles, and starring Viva! (Andy Warhol’s favourite actress) and Jerry Ragni and Jim Rado (authors and actors of the cult musical ‘Hair’) it was a daring and avant-garde film for its time, a kind of doc-fiction depicting a certain type of Hollywood lifestyle of the period.

Finally, the other cinema event under the overall umbrella of the Cannes Festival is “La Semaine de la Critique” (The Critics Week), established by the SFCD, the French Union of  Film Critics, with the  aim of giving  ‘ a breath of fresh air’ to cinema.  This 49th edition was opened by the French film “Le Nom des Gens” (“The names of Love” in its English publicity) by Michel Leclerc, a  political comedy centred around a young woman who uses sex to convert her political enemies. Leclerc manages to make many criticisms of current French society in a truly funny way, and is considered by some to be a French version of Nanni Moretti or Woody Allen. Seven feature-length films and seven shorts are competing in this section, and three more films, including ‘Le Nom des Gens’