News Analysis India

Tag: 74th Cannes Film Festival

  • Hong Kong protest documentary gets late Cannes slot

    By Associated Press
    CANNES (France): The Cannes film festival is set to screen a documentary on the 2019 crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement on Friday, July 16, 2021, potentially risking diplomatic tensions with China.

    A late entry slotted for the festival’s penultimate day, “Revolution of our Times” chronicles the Hong Kong government’s violent suppression of protests sparked by the introduction of an extradition bill allowing Hong Kong citizens to be handed over to China for prosecution.

    “This film is free from self-censorship,” director Kiwi Chow said. “In many documentaries made about the movement, filmmakers are under immense pressure due to the current political climate of the city. I made this film completely free from any external influences,” he said.

    The Cannes leadership said it had been unaware of the film, the conditions of its production or the identity of the filmmaker before it was sent to the festival. 

    “But we were enthusiastic immediately,” festival director Thierry Fremaux.

    “The festival is proud to present this film to show an important moment in world events. This has been Cannes’s tradition and calling since 1946,” he added.

    For around 152 minutes, the documentary explores the protest movement, which had no clear leader, from the inside.

    The involvement of ordinary citizens is prominent in the film, many of them young, their faces hidden by masks or blurred in post-production.

    “I wanted to account for the development, what brought us to this point,” Chow said. “I want to tell the story of Hong Kong to people who don’t know about Hong Kong.” 

    A wealth of footage of pitched battles and fighting around barricades shows Hong Kong police using extreme brutality.

    Images show severe beatings of demonstrators rounded up in police traps, people pushed out of windows and suspected drownings.

    Chow said he felt “anxiety and fear in my heart” making the documentary, and predicted that it will not be shown publicly in Hong Kong where police surveillance of potential protests has been beefed up.

    Some of its protagonists — who could face prosecution under a new China-sponsored security law — are now in exile, some are in prison and others missing, Chow said.

    Cannes has handled the film with unusual discretion, allowing only a handful of accredited reporters to see it before a single scheduled public screening headlined “surprise documentary” on Friday, July 16.

  • This is the moment for women to enter the film industry, Jodie Foster tells Cannes

    By AFP
    There has never been a better time for women to enter the film industry, American superstar Jodie Foster told the Cannes festival on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, saying movies had too long been starved of female perspectives.

    Addressing a large crowd of mostly young festival-goers in near-fluent French, she encouraged budding women filmmakers to seek their own truth and not try to please others.

    “This is the moment for women to enter the industry,” Foster said.

    Although male domination of the industry had “not changed completely,” she said, “there is now an awareness that it’s been too long that we haven’t heard stories told by women… This is the moment.”

    Foster received a lifetime achievement for her work that has included star turns in “Taxi Driver” and “Bugsy Malone” when she was a child, through to her Oscar-winning role in “Silence of the Lambs”. She has also directed several films, including “Money Monster” with George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

    “I know it’s a bit cliche to say ‘tell your own stories’,” Foster said. “But what I mean is: ask yourself questions about the truthfulness of things and whether they resonate within you, instead of pleasing others, be it the public or producers.”

    #RedSteps Jodie Foster, Honorary Palme d’or, surrounded by Pedro Almodóvar, Bong Joon Ho and the jury #Cannes2021 #Cannes74 pic.twitter.com/vCrRZa9Ljl
    — Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) July 6, 2021

    ‘Worst reason’ 

    Foster said many young actors entered the movie business saying “I want to be looked at in my pretty clothes” which she said was the “worst reason” for taking up the profession.

    “For some people it can take years, unfortunately, to cast off that armour that separates you from authenticity on the screen,” she said.

    Talking about her own experience, Foster said Pedro Almodovar — who presented her with her honorary Palme the day before — was “the first feminist director for me”.

    “It was the first time I’d seen films that talked about women in an authentic way,” she said of the legendary Spanish director, who has made women central to many of his films.

    Foster called Almodovar an exception among male directors who “can’t easily transpose themselves into a woman’s body and ask themselves what the complicated and complex experience of a woman consists of.”

    #RedSteps Pedro ALMODÓVAR and Jodie FOSTER – Opening Ceremony of the 74th Festival de Cannes#Cannes2021 #Cannes74 pic.twitter.com/wcP6XYUAWS
    — Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) July 6, 2021

    Male ‘confusion’ 

    Referring to her experience as a director, she said that there was still “confusion” in the male-dominated movie industry about how women exercise leadership positions.

    “They don’t understand how women lead because they’ve never seen women lead,” she said of male producers. 

    “They don’t know how to talk to women to convince them of something. They’re afraid because they don’t know how to deal with these situations.”

    #RedSteps Jodie FOSTER#Cannes2021 #Cannes74 pic.twitter.com/hgTUc1Jkng
    — Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) July 6, 2021

    The Cannes film festival has raised eyebrows for including just four films by women directors in the list of 24 movies vying for the top Palme d’Or prize in the main competition.

    The gender balance is tilted less towards men in the festival’s other competition categories, and the main jury this year is mostly female, including US star Maggie Gyllenhaal, Canadian-French singer Mylene Farmer and French-Senegalese director Mati Diop.

    Only one woman has won the Palme d’Or in 73 editions of the festival — Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993.