News Analysis India

Tag: Cannes

  • Cannes 2022: Films by Alex Garland, Mia Hanson-Love part of Director’s Fortnight lineup

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Alex Garland-directed “Men” and Mia Hanson-Love’s “One Fine Morning” are among the 23 feature films to be selected for the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

    The festival organisers unveiled the lineup for the sidebar event on Tuesday in a press conference, and it also includes nine movies by first-time filmmakers and 11 films by women directors.

    Italian auteur Pietro Marcello’s “Scarlet” will open the section on May 18, while French director Nicolas Pariser-directed “The Green Perfume” will serve as the closing film.

    Garland’s “Men”, which is his third directorial efforts after critically-acclaimed movies “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation”, will play as a Special Screening at the film gala.

    French director Hansen-Love returns to Cannes with “One Fine Morning”, starring Lea Seydoux, after she presented her last movie “Bergman Island” at the 2021 edition.

    Also part of the lineup is Paul Mescal and Emily Watson-starrer “God’s Creatures”, directed by Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, and Mark Jenkin’s “Enys Men”.

    Filmmaker Alice Winocour, best known for her 2019 movie “Proxima”, will show her new feature “Paris Memories”.

    The first-time filmmakers who will presenting their films at Directors’ Fortnight include Fabian Hernandez, Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, Charlotte Le Bon, Elena Lopez Riera, Youssef Chebbi, Annie Ernaux & David Ernaux-Briot, Ali Cherri and Manuela Martelli.

    Meanwhile, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will receive Director’s Fortnight’s honorary award Carrosse d’Or.

    The filmmaker, known for movies like “River of Grass”, “Old Joy”, “Wendy and Lucy” and “Certain Women”, will host a masterclass at the festival and also present her latest film “Showing Up” in Competition.

    The 54th edition of Director’s Fortnight runs May 18 to 27.

  • Cannes announces official fest line-up, Indian doc ‘All That Breathes’ in Special Screening section

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Delhi-based filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s documentary “All That Breathes” will premiere in the Special Screening segment at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, the organisers announced Thursday as they unveiled the official line-up of the movie gala.

    The 10-day festival, considered one of the most prestigious gathering of cinema talent from across the world, will also see Hollywood spectacles such as “Top Gun: Maverick” and the Elvis Presley biopic its 75th edition.

    “All That Breathes” by Delhi-based director Sen will premiere in the Special Screening segment at the festival, the organisers said in an announcement that was live streamed on their official Twitter page.

    The 90-minute long documentary follows siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who have devoted their lives to rescue and treat injured birds, especially the Black Kites.

    Working out of their derelict basement in Wazirabad, the Delhi brothers become the central focus of the film and their story zooms out to document a larger snapshot of the city, where the air is toxic and the ground is on a slowburn of social turmoil.

    In January, the film won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, a film gala that promotes independent cinema and filmmakers.

    It is Sen’s second directorial after the acclaimed 2016 “Cities of Sleep”, which was about the homeless scouting for places to sleep in the capital.

    There is no Indian film in the Un Certain Regard section but neighbouring country Pakistan’s “Joyland”, written and directed by filmmaker Saim Sadiq, features in the segment.

    The director previously won the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film for “Darling” at the 2019 Venice Film Festival.

    As previously announced Paramount-Skydance’s “Top Gun: Maverick”, starring Tom Cruise, and Warner Bros/Roadshow’s “Elvis” directed by Baz Luhrmann featuring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks will be the star attractions on the red carpet of the festival.

    Cruise, who had attended Festival de Cannes three decades ago for Ron Howard’s “Far And Away”, will also be honoured with a special career tribute at the gala.

    These two big-budget spectacles will be screened under the Out of Competition segment along with “Three Thousand Years of Longing” by George Miller of “Mad Max” fame, Cedric Jiminez’s “Novembre”, and “Masquerade” by Nicolas Bedos.

    The gala will open on May 17 with “Z (Comme Z)” by Michel Hazanavicius, which will be screened Out of Competition.

    Palm D’Or winning Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda will return to the Croissette with “Broker”, his Korean language debut starring Korean stars Song Kang-ho (“Parasite”), Bae Doona (“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”), Gang Dong-won (“Peninsula”) and Lee Ji-eun, better known by her stage name IU.

    “Broker” is part of the Competition section along with South Korean master filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave”.

    Park, known for the “Vengeance” trilogy and “The Handmaiden”, won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for “Oldboy” and the Jury Prize for his vampire film “Thirst” in 2009.

    “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind” by Ethan Coen and “The Natural History of Destruction” by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa are also part of the Special Screening line-up.

    South Korean star Lee Jung-jae’s directorial debut “Hunt” will premiere in the Midnight Screening section of the prestigious film gala.

    Lee, a popular name in his native South Korea, shot to international fame and acclaim following his role of player number 456 Seong gi-hun in “Squid Game”, a Netflix survival drama series last September.

    “Fumer Fait Tousser” by Quentin Dupieux and “Moonage Daydream” by Brett Morgen are also part of the Midnight Screening segment.

    James Gray’s “Armageddon Time”, “Stars At Noon” by Claire Denis, “Crimes of the Future” (David Cronenberg), “Les Amandiers” (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up” and “Boy From Heaven” by Tarik Saleh are included in the total 18 film line-up of the Competition category.

    There are 15 films in the Un Certain Regard listing, which also features “Les Pires” by director duo Lisa Akoka and Romane Gueret, Kristoffer Borgli’s “Sick Of Myself”, “Beast” helmed by actor Riley Keough and Gina Gammell, “Plan 75” (Hayakawa Chie), and “Butterfly Vision” from Maksim Nakonechnyi, among others.

    The Cannes Premiere section will see the titles such as “Nos Frangins” by Rachid Bouchareb, “Nightfall” directed by Marco Bellocchio, Panos H Koutras’ “Dodo”, and the “Irma Vep” series from director Olivier Assayas.

    The 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will run through May 28.

  • Cannes selection is a shot in the arm: Bangladeshi filmmaker Abdullah Mohammad Saad

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The 74th Cannes Film Festival is inching towards its finale and the much-coveted awards are hours away from being handed out.

    One filmmaker who is in with a fair chance of springing a surprise is Bangladesh’s Abdullah Mohammad Saad, the only South Asian with a title in the competitive Un Certain Regard section. Saad’s sophomore venture, “Rehana Maryam Noor”, which premiered in early in ongoing festival, made a strong impression.

    The fate of the 20 films that constitute the section will be decided by a five-member jury headed by English filmmaker Andrea Arnold. PTI caught up with Saad to talk about his film, the first-ever from Bangladesh to make it to the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection.

    “For me, it’s a great honour and a huge inspiration,” he says. The only Bangladeshi film to have been screened in Cannes before “Rehana Maryam Noor” was Tareque Masud’s “Matir Moina” (‘The Clay Bird’), but it was in Directors’ Fortnight in 2002.

    The director sees the Cannes slot for “Rehana Maryam Noor” as a major shot in the arm, as much for him as for Bangladeshi cinema as a whole. “Making a film requires so much sacrifice. So, when something like this happens, it really helps you to carry on,” says the 36-year-old director who debuted in 2016 with the critically-acclaimed “Live From Dhaka”.

    “For my country, it meant a lot. Especially because it’s our 50 years of independence. I am sure our filmmakers will keep making brilliant films and we will be regular in the Cannes selection from the next year,” he adds.

    How did Saad pack so much power in a film as understated as “Rehana Maryam Noor”? “It’s really hard to explain. I guess it is because I always prefer to leave space for my audiences to have their own interpretation. I don’t try to confirm any particular feelings nor convince them how must they think about my characters,” he says.

    Besides Saad, team “Rehana Maryam Noor” was led on the Cannes red carpet by the film’s lead actor Azmeri Haque Badhon, whose performance as the eponymous character has drawn unstinted praise from critics.

    Talking about how he zeroed in on Badhon, Saad says: “During the look test, she was exactly what I had been imagining Rehana to be since the time I started writing the film.” He adds: “I could feel that she connects with Rehana personally. That’s when I became sure of her. She was absolutely committed to this film from day one, opened her heart and soul, and gave it her best.”

    Asked about his approach to actors, Saad says: “I try to be specific with my actors and not give them too much information or over-explain an idea. Actors have an innate ability to understand what really a scene requires. I just try to build on that and keep chasing until we hit all the important notes. There wasn’t much improvisation.”

    “We rehearsed for nine months. Although it’s hard to make sudden changes in a tightly knit screenplay, I like to be open while directing on set. If a better approach comes up, I embrace it. Did the “Rehana Maryam Noor” idea emerge from real-life experiences? “Yes, it did. I write from my personal experiences and things that I have been observing closely in my life,” Saad replies.

    On the cinematic influences on him, Saad mentions no specific names. He says: “The idea of wanting to become a filmmaker grew into me very slowly. But later when I started to watch films regularly, I became fond of a lot of filmmakers.”

  • Cannes selection for a shot in the arm: Bangladeshi filmmaker Abdullah Mohammad Saad

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The 74th Cannes Film Festival is inching towards its finale and the much-coveted awards are hours away from being handed out.

    One filmmaker who is in with a fair chance of springing a surprise is Bangladesh’s Abdullah Mohammad Saad, the only South Asian with a title in the competitive Un Certain Regard section. Saad’s sophomore venture, “Rehana Maryam Noor”, which premiered in early in ongoing festival, made a strong impression.

    The fate of the 20 films that constitute the section will be decided by a five-member jury headed by English filmmaker Andrea Arnold. PTI caught up with Saad to talk about his film, the first-ever from Bangladesh to make it to the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection.

    “For me, it’s a great honour and a huge inspiration,” he says. The only Bangladeshi film to have been screened in Cannes before “Rehana Maryam Noor” was Tareque Masud’s “Matir Moina” (‘The Clay Bird’), but it was in Directors’ Fortnight in 2002.

    The director sees the Cannes slot for “Rehana Maryam Noor” as a major shot in the arm, as much for him as for Bangladeshi cinema as a whole. “Making a film requires so much sacrifice. So, when something like this happens, it really helps you to carry on,” says the 36-year-old director who debuted in 2016 with the critically-acclaimed “Live From Dhaka”.

    “For my country, it meant a lot. Especially because it’s our 50 years of independence. I am sure our filmmakers will keep making brilliant films and we will be regular in the Cannes selection from the next year,” he adds.

    How did Saad pack so much power in a film as understated as “Rehana Maryam Noor”? “It’s really hard to explain. I guess it is because I always prefer to leave space for my audiences to have their own interpretation. I don’t try to confirm any particular feelings nor convince them how must they think about my characters,” he says.

    Besides Saad, team “Rehana Maryam Noor” was led on the Cannes red carpet by the film’s lead actor Azmeri Haque Badhon, whose performance as the eponymous character has drawn unstinted praise from critics.

    Talking about how he zeroed in on Badhon, Saad says: “During the look test, she was exactly what I had been imagining Rehana to be since the time I started writing the film.” He adds: “I could feel that she connects with Rehana personally. That’s when I became sure of her. She was absolutely committed to this film from day one, opened her heart and soul, and gave it her best.”

    Asked about his approach to actors, Saad says: “I try to be specific with my actors and not give them too much information or over-explain an idea. Actors have an innate ability to understand what really a scene requires. I just try to build on that and keep chasing until we hit all the important notes. There wasn’t much improvisation.”

    “We rehearsed for nine months. Although it’s hard to make sudden changes in a tightly knit screenplay, I like to be open while directing on set. If a better approach comes up, I embrace it. Did the “Rehana Maryam Noor” idea emerge from real-life experiences? “Yes, it did. I write from my personal experiences and things that I have been observing closely in my life,” Saad replies.

    On the cinematic influences on him, Saad mentions no specific names. He says: “The idea of wanting to become a filmmaker grew into me very slowly. But later when I started to watch films regularly, I became fond of a lot of filmmakers.”

  • Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’ receives nine-minute standing ovation at Cannes

    By ANI
    WASHINGTON: Wes Anderson’s film, ‘The French Dispatch’, had its long-awaited premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday and earned one of the biggest standing ovations so far at the 74th edition of the event.

    As per Variety, the applause continued for nine minutes for Anderson and his cast in attendance, which included Timothee Chalamet, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Stephen Park, and Benicio Del Toro.

    But one actor couldn’t make the trip. Lea Seydoux was absent from the movie premiere, as she is quarantining in Paris after testing positive for COVID-19.

    As the event began, there were signs that this wasn’t going to be a regular Cannes premiere. Instead of a black car, the cast, along with composer Alexandre Desplat, arrived together in a giant gold party bus, escorted by French motorcycle police. Murray took off his mask (which had an imprint of a chin on it), basking in the flashing lights.

    Anderson stopped his ensemble at the bottom of the carpet to take a group photo. Many of the actors also seemed to be doing their own camera work. Wilson filmed the crowds at the bottom of the carpet, and Brody pulled in Chalamet for a selfie at the top of the stairs (violating the festival’s no-selfie rule, although none of the ushers tackled his phone — as they do with regular attendees attempting the same).

    Swinton, who has five movies playing at Cannes, wore a pink gown with shimmering gold sequin-covered sleeves. Chalamet leaned his head on her shoulder.

    Once Anderson entered the theater, the Cannes crowd welcomed him with a rapturous standing ovation. Chalamet and Swinton held hands walking down the aisle, and he mouthed “Queens baby!” to the cameras as he clapped along.

    After the lights went back up, Murray walked from seat to seat hugging every person in the cast. Swinton was caught playing a hilarious prank on co-star Chalamet as the audience gave the film a standing ovation.

    A video of the comical incident shows Swinton sneakily sticking a “Tilda Swinton” sign on Chalamet’s back while pretending to hug him.

    The Searchlight film follows a weekly magazine that covers global politics, culture, art, and food in a special interest section of a daily newspaper from Kansas. Murray plays a devout editor to a gang of expatriate writers who must package their final collection of stories.

    Through the feature write-ups, comic strips, and pictorials, Anderson weaves several vignettes and plot threads.

    The film is a love letter to journalism, although ironically Anderson declined to hold a press conference with his cast or conduct any interviews with reporters in Cannes.

    The end credits are dedicated to a list of editors and writers that inspired the film, among them The New Yorker’s Harold Ross, William Shawn, Lillian Ross and Janet Flanner; James Baldwin; Ved Mehta, and more.

    ‘The French Dispatch’ was acquired by Searchlight in September 2019 and was meant to play Cannes 2020, which was scrapped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The release date was pushed to October 2020 only to be delayed again.

    The movie is now scheduled to open in theaters in the United States on October 22.

  • Cannes Docs 2021 edition to have documentaries from four South Asian countries

    By ANI
    WASHINGTON: South Asian countries including India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal are ready to compete for the docs-in-progress grand prize and other awards at the 2021 edition of Cannes Docs of the Cannes Film Festival.

    As per Variety, documentaries from these countries will be competing for the USD 11,866 grand prize and other major accolades at the 2021 Cannes Docs edition.

    Short filmmaker Hezbullah Sultani from Bangladesh will compete among others with his debut feature documentary titled ‘Birds Street’. The feature will explore Kabul’s showcase for avian life, a corner of the city tucked away behind a mosque untouched by war or modernization.

    As per Variety, the film is produced and co-edited by Sahraa Karimi, whose feature directorial debut ‘Hava, Maryam, Ayesha’ nodded at Venice in 2019, played at Busan and was Afghanistan’s entry for the Oscars.

    Another entry from Bangladesh is ‘Munni’ that follows the life of a child bride who went on to become an inspirational soccer coach and protector at an all-girl sports academy.

    ‘Munni’ is helmed by Tahrima Khan Tonni, whose ‘Color of Water’ was funded by the British Council, and she was awarded as an International Climate Champion.

    It is produced by Abu Shahed Emon, whose feature directorial debut ‘Jalal’s Story’ was Bangladesh’s entry to the 2016 Oscars and his production ‘Sincerely Yours, Dhaka’ was the country’s submission to the 2019 Oscars, reported Variety.

    ‘Thirteen Destinations of a Traveller’ by debutant Partha Das is also among the documentaries that will be competing at Cannes Docs. The film explores two parallel journeys- one sees thousands of Sufi pilgrims march together over days and miles to proclaim unrequited love for humanity, and in the other, a disabled, marginal Muslim man in India tries to transform his life fighting against physical, economic and social challenges in search of love, compassion and happiness.

    The project’s two producers are- Mokhalesur Rahman Talukdar from Bangladesh and Soumya Mukhopadhyay from India.

    Subina Shrestha who is a journalist and a filmmaker (Nepal) will be entering into the competition with her film ‘Devi’, a Nepal-U.K.-U.S. co-production that follows a former guerilla fighter who survived wartime rape and decides to fight for justice.

    The project’s producer is Rosie Garthwaite whose Emmy nominated ‘The Workers Cup’ premiered at Sundance in 2017.

    According to Variety, the South Asian showcase at Cannes Docs is organized by the International Film Initiative of Bangladesh. Other showcases this year are from Canada, Italy, Chile, Palestine, Paris DOC and Showcase Circle.

    Cannes Docs is a part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Marche du Film. The awards for the same will be announced on July 13, this year.