News Analysis India

Tag: Palme d

  • ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

    The French director's debut “Age of Panic” was set around the presidential elections in France in 2012 and caused a sensation when it premiered at Cannes the following year. CANNES: French director Justine Triet hit a stridently militant note in her acceptance speech for the Palme d’Or on Saturday. Triet became the third woman to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday with her gripping and icy “Anatomy of a Fall”.

    “The country suffered from historic protests over the reform of the pension system. These protests were denied… repressed in a shocking way,” she said.

    She also criticised the “commercialisation of culture” by President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

    Her speech provoked a swift response from Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak, who said she was “gobsmacked” by Triet’s “unfair” comments.

    Victory for the tense courtroom drama about a writer accused of her husband’s murder capped a strong year for women directors at the French Riviera festival.

    “I have always made films about women and here, I went even further in the idea of showing a woman character who is not easy to understand in the first instance,” Triet told AFP ahead of Cannes.

    The 44-year-old follows two previous women winners of the prestigious Palme d’Or — Jane Campion for “The Piano” (1993) and Julia Ducournau for “Titane” (2021).

    Born on July 17, 1978, Triet grew up in Paris and studied arts in the French capital.

    “My mother had a fairly complex life, worked and raised three children, two of whom were not her own. My father was very absent”, she told AFP.

    She ditched her studies after a few years to devote herself to film and made her first documentary in 2007 about student protests that were taking place at the time.

    “Anatomy of a Fall” is her fourth feature.

    Le discours engagé de Justine Triet, réalisatrice de “Anatomie d’une chute”, au moment de recevoir la Palme d’Or de ce 76ème @Festival_Cannes.#Cannes2023 pic.twitter.com/yEQXaCIlrX
    — france.tv cinéma (@francetvcinema) May 27, 2023

    Her debut “Age of Panic” was set around the presidential elections in France in 2012 and caused a sensation when it premiered at Cannes the following year.

    Her next movie, the romcom “In Bed With Victoria” (2016) was nominated for multiple Cesars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars.

    Absolutely incredible moment when Jane Fonda, having awarded Justine Triet the Palme d’Or, rushes after her to hand her the traditional scroll that all winners receive, and, when Triet doesn’t hear her, simply… lobs it right at her. Weeping https://t.co/B7BFAP0jpJ
    — Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) May 27, 2023

    Triet co-wrote her Palme-winning film with her partner Arthur Harari, an actor and director.

    “For a very long time when I watched films, I took myself for the boy, I identified with the male role”, she said, referring to the lack of options for women in the industry when she was young.

    “Anatomy of a Fall” features a show-stopping performance from German actress Sandra Hueller.

    Hueller also had a brief and comical role in Triet’s previous movie “Sibyl”, which competed at Cannes in 2019.

    “Everything that comes out of her is 100 percent strong,” Triet said of Hueller, who also starred in the runner-up at this year’s Cannes, Grand Prix-winner “The Zone of Interest”.

    “She is an actress who has a real point of view on her character, there is a real exchange.”

  • ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ wins Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or; 3rd-time female director wins top honor

    By Associated Press

    Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony Saturday that bestowed the festival’s prestigious top prize on an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

    “Anatomy of a Fall,” which stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or. One of the two previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year’s jury.

    Cannes’ Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.

    The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for “Triangle of Sadness.” The ceremony preceded the festival’s closing night film, the Pixar animation “Elemental.”

    Remarkably, the award for “Anatomy of a Fall” gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed “Triangle of Sadness,”Ducournau’s “Titane” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

    Triet was presented the Palme by Jane Fonda, who recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing “and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.” This year, a record seven out of the 21 films in competition at Cannes were directed by women.

    After a rousing standing ovation, Triet, the 44-year-old French filmmaker, spoke passionately about the protests that have roiled France this year over reforms to pension plans and the retirement age. Several protests were held during Cannes this year, but demonstrations were — as they have been in many high-profile locations throughout France — banned from the area around the Palais des Festivals. Protesters were largely relegated to the outskirts of Cannes.

    “The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way,” said Triet, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. “The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception.”

    “This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today,” she added. “We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.”

    After the ceremony, Triet reflected on being the third female director to win the Palme, following Ducournau and Jane Campion (“The Piano”). “Things are truly changing,” she said.

    Speaking to reporters, Triet was joined by her star, Hüller, whose performance was arguably the most acclaimed of the festival. (The festival encourages juries not to give films more than one award.) But

    “Anatomy of a Fall” did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival’s films went to the film’s border collie, Snoop.

    The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

    Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” a gentle, quotidian character study.

    The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.” Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

    “I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this area of the country,” said Dizdar. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.”

    Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.

    Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for “Monster.” Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. “Monster” also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

    Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top award for “Pulp Fiction,” attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “unadulterated cinema pleasure.”

    “My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,” said Corman, the independent film maverick. “I feel like this what Cannes is about.”

    The festival’s Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature, “How to Have Sex.”Saturday’s ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn’t lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

    The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered “Asteroid City.”

    The festival opened on a note of controversy. “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp’s highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.

    Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony Saturday that bestowed the festival’s prestigious top prize on an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

    “Anatomy of a Fall,” which stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or. One of the two previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year’s jury.

    Cannes’ Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });

    The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for “Triangle of Sadness.” The ceremony preceded the festival’s closing night film, the Pixar animation “Elemental.”

    Remarkably, the award for “Anatomy of a Fall” gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed “Triangle of Sadness,”Ducournau’s “Titane” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

    Triet was presented the Palme by Jane Fonda, who recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing “and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.” This year, a record seven out of the 21 films in competition at Cannes were directed by women.

    After a rousing standing ovation, Triet, the 44-year-old French filmmaker, spoke passionately about the protests that have roiled France this year over reforms to pension plans and the retirement age. Several protests were held during Cannes this year, but demonstrations were — as they have been in many high-profile locations throughout France — banned from the area around the Palais des Festivals. Protesters were largely relegated to the outskirts of Cannes.

    “The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way,” said Triet, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. “The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception.”

    “This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today,” she added. “We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.”

    After the ceremony, Triet reflected on being the third female director to win the Palme, following Ducournau and Jane Campion (“The Piano”). “Things are truly changing,” she said.

    Speaking to reporters, Triet was joined by her star, Hüller, whose performance was arguably the most acclaimed of the festival. (The festival encourages juries not to give films more than one award.) But

    “Anatomy of a Fall” did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival’s films went to the film’s border collie, Snoop.

    The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

    Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” a gentle, quotidian character study.

    The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.” Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

    “I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this area of the country,” said Dizdar. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.”

    Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.

    Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for “Monster.” Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. “Monster” also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

    Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top award for “Pulp Fiction,” attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “unadulterated cinema pleasure.”

    “My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,” said Corman, the independent film maverick. “I feel like this what Cannes is about.”

    The festival’s Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature, “How to Have Sex.”
    Saturday’s ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn’t lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

    The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered “Asteroid City.”

    The festival opened on a note of controversy. “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp’s highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.

  • Cannes Film Festival kicks off Tuesday with Johnny Depp’s ‘Jeanne du Barry’

    By Associated Press

    FRANCE: The Cannes red carpet springs to life again on Tuesday as the 76th Cannes Film Festival gets underway with the premiere of the Louis XV period drama “Jeanne du Barry” with Johnny Depp.

    This year’s festival promises a Cote d’Azur buffet of spectacle, scandal and cinema set to be served over the next 12 days.

    It’s unspooling against the backdrop of labour unrest.

    Protests that have roiled France in recent months over changes to its pension system are planned to run during the festival, albeit at a distance from the festival’s main hub.

    Meanwhile, an ongoing strike by screenwriters in Hollywood could have unpredictable effects on the French Riviera festival.

    But with a festival lined with some much-anticipated big-budget films, including James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of the Destiny” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, the party is sure to go on, regardless.

    Stars set to hit Cannes’ red carpet in the next week and a half include Natalie Portman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Sean Penn, Alicia Vikander, the Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) and Scarlett Johansson.

    The festivities on Tuesday will include an opening ceremony where Michael Douglas is to receive an honorary Palme d’Or.

    (Later, one will also be dished out to “Indiana Jones” star Harrison Ford).

    The jury that will decide the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, will also be introduced.

    This year, the jury is led by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund, a two-time Palme winner who last year won for the social satire “The Triangle of Sadness”.

    The rest of the jury includes Brie Larson, Paul Dano, French director Julia Ducournau, Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron, Afghan director Atiq Rahimi, French actor Denis Ménochet, Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Tourzani and Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni.

    The opening night selection has attracted some controversy.

    “Jeanne du Barry”, directed by and co-starring the French actor-director Maïwenn, co-stars Depp as Louis XV.

    It’s Depp’s first new film since his trial last year with Amber Heard, his ex-wife.

    After both Depp and Heard accused each other of physical and verbal abuse, a civil jury awarded Depp USD 10 million in damages and USD 2 million to Heard.

    In remarks to the press on Monday, Cannes director Thierry Fremaux defended the choice, saying Depp is extraordinary in the film and he paid no attention to the trial.

    “To tell you the truth, in my life, I only have one rule, it’s the freedom of thinking, the freedom of speech and the freedom to act within a legal framework,” said Fremaux.

    “If Johnny Depp had been banned from acting in a film, or the film was banned we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

    FRANCE: The Cannes red carpet springs to life again on Tuesday as the 76th Cannes Film Festival gets underway with the premiere of the Louis XV period drama “Jeanne du Barry” with Johnny Depp.

    This year’s festival promises a Cote d’Azur buffet of spectacle, scandal and cinema set to be served over the next 12 days.

    It’s unspooling against the backdrop of labour unrest.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });

    Protests that have roiled France in recent months over changes to its pension system are planned to run during the festival, albeit at a distance from the festival’s main hub.

    Meanwhile, an ongoing strike by screenwriters in Hollywood could have unpredictable effects on the French Riviera festival.

    But with a festival lined with some much-anticipated big-budget films, including James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of the Destiny” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, the party is sure to go on, regardless.

    Stars set to hit Cannes’ red carpet in the next week and a half include Natalie Portman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Sean Penn, Alicia Vikander, the Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) and Scarlett Johansson.

    The festivities on Tuesday will include an opening ceremony where Michael Douglas is to receive an honorary Palme d’Or.

    (Later, one will also be dished out to “Indiana Jones” star Harrison Ford).

    The jury that will decide the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, will also be introduced.

    This year, the jury is led by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund, a two-time Palme winner who last year won for the social satire “The Triangle of Sadness”.

    The rest of the jury includes Brie Larson, Paul Dano, French director Julia Ducournau, Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron, Afghan director Atiq Rahimi, French actor Denis Ménochet, Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Tourzani and Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni.

    The opening night selection has attracted some controversy.

    “Jeanne du Barry”, directed by and co-starring the French actor-director Maïwenn, co-stars Depp as Louis XV.

    It’s Depp’s first new film since his trial last year with Amber Heard, his ex-wife.

    After both Depp and Heard accused each other of physical and verbal abuse, a civil jury awarded Depp USD 10 million in damages and USD 2 million to Heard.

    In remarks to the press on Monday, Cannes director Thierry Fremaux defended the choice, saying Depp is extraordinary in the film and he paid no attention to the trial.

    “To tell you the truth, in my life, I only have one rule, it’s the freedom of thinking, the freedom of speech and the freedom to act within a legal framework,” said Fremaux.

    “If Johnny Depp had been banned from acting in a film, or the film was banned we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

  • Going to challenge audience to deal with boredom: Palme d’Or winner Ruben Ostlund on next film

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: His last film, ‘Triangle of Sadness’, featured a 15-minute vomit scene and with his next, ‘The Entertainment System is Down’, two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Ostlund hopes to take his audiences on a ride through boredom.

    “I want something to be connected with my brand and it is this: it’s going to be a risk if you go to the cinema,” the Swedish filmmaker, who was announced jury head for the Cannes Film Festival’s 76th edition on Tuesday, told PTI.

    In fact, he goes on to add somewhat controversially that he wants his new film, which features an eight-minute segment focused on a child getting bored, to cause the biggest walkout at Cannes.

    Cannes audiences are notorious for their extreme reaction to movies which can range from long-standing ovations to straight walkouts.

    And Ostlund is actively seeking that extreme reaction by staging the story on a long haul flight with no entertainment system.

    “Soon after take-off, passengers get the horrible news that the entertainment system is not working. So when the iPhones and iPads are shorting out, we have modern human beings that have to deal with basically boredom and they’re lost with their own thoughts. And that is something that we human beings tend to see as something horrible. Basically, we don’t like that,” Ostlund told PTI in a virtual interview.

    The filmmaker, who started out by making films on skiing and action sports before his feature film debut with “The Guitar Mongoloid” in 2004, shot to international fame with 2014’s “Force Majeure” and 2017’s Palme d’Or-winner “The Square”.

    Then came ‘Triangle of Sadness’ in 2022.

    “Triangle of Sadness” again won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year and is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.

    If an avalanche is the centrepiece in “Force Majeure”, a monkey imitation act in “The Square” and a storm and resultant seasickness in “Triangle of Sadness”, boredom is the central theme in the next, he said.

    Ostlund said he will show an impatient little kid, his big brother and mother on the flight where the entertainment system is down and they have just one iPad.

    The little kid wants the iPad and the mother tells him to calm down and wait for eight minutes.

    “It’s going to be an anti-climax climax scene. I’m actually going to challenge the audience. I’m going to say to them, ‘okay, you have to deal with boredom now for eight minutes’. So we will have a real time shot when you see this little kid for eight minutes. Like, okay, how much time is left now? Well, now it’s seven minutes and 45 seconds. I think this scene is going to be the biggest walkout in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. That is my goal, at least.”

    He wants audiences to associate his brand of movies with some risk.

    “There has to be a risk to go to the cinemas. I think that if we’re going to the cinema and we have a collective experience, there has to be a risk involved, like for example, the vomiting in the ‘Triangle of Sadness’. How should I, when I go to the cinema, react. Well, there’s someone sitting next to me, so my reaction is going to be evaluated by that person.”

    ‘Triangle of Sadness’ will be released across 75 screens in India through Ashwini Kumar Sharma’s Impact Films on March 3 in cities such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi.

    The film, the 48-year-old Ostlund said, was born out of a desire to take a deep dive into the world of high fashion, life at a luxury yacht and an island.

    He wanted to explore the idea of beauty as a social currency, but reverse the gender gaze.

    “My wife is a fashion photographer and she told me about many of the models she is working with. They come from different parts of the society and many of them come from the working class. Beauty for them has been the ticket to travelling across society. Of course, this is a known fact for women because we live in a society where men have the resources,” he said.

    Describing the life of male models, who unlike their female counterparts are not at the top of the pyramid, Ostlund said it was interesting to look at it from the “male perspective”.

    “I was very interested in looking at our behaviour from this perspective in these times where the image of ourselves is the currency that a lot of us are using. We are using it much more now than we did 10 years ago. I thought it was interesting to look at beauty as a currency in the fashion world, on the yacht and what happens on the deserted island when a cleaning lady who knows how to fish ends up on top of the hierarchy. In fact, a crucial scene in ‘Triangle of Sadness’, where the two characters are fighting over who should pay the restaurant bill, is taken directly from Ostlund’s own life when he first met his wife.

    Terming sociology his favourite subject, Ostlund said he is dealing with set ups that are similar to sociology where there are two or more choices but none of them are easy.

    “If I look at my own life, these dilemmas are connected with gender expectations. So how does the culture expect me to be as a man. What happens when I say I don’t want to pay the bill at a restaurant even though the gender expectation is that I should. These are conflicts that I myself have had with the culture. I want to be free but I don’t feel free.”

    Any interview on ‘Triangle of Sadness’, which in the modelling world refers to the area between the eyebrows, is incomplete without talking about the chaotic scene filled with vomiting guests and a broken sewage system. Amid all the fine dining, chaos and storm, Woody Harrelson’s Marxist captain engages in a rousing discussion on communism with a Russian businessman.

    Ostlund said it was a hard scene to shoot and his crew fell seasick while working for eight hours on a rocking set but he enjoyed putting the ideological discussion in the middle of it.

    “What I enjoyed a lot while I was writing the film was to go into these two different ideologies. These two different forces, when I was brought up in the ’80s, were bashing their heads against each other. It was socialism and individualism and neoliberalism on one side. I have, as a Swede, constantly navigated myself through these two different ideologies and my mother is a left wing, she still considered herself a communist,” he recalled.

    While ideological discussions were a huge part of his life growing up, he felt that “we have left this world behind” now.

    “Now we have stopped being fans of an ideology. But it felt like when the conflict with Russia and Ukraine happened, all of a sudden the world was in the west and an eastern perspective again, in some ways. But I love to go into these old quotes by (Ronald) Reagan and (Margaret) Thatcher and Lenin and Marx and see what they actually say. And to play around with this.”

    NEW DELHI: His last film, ‘Triangle of Sadness’, featured a 15-minute vomit scene and with his next, ‘The Entertainment System is Down’, two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Ostlund hopes to take his audiences on a ride through boredom.

    “I want something to be connected with my brand and it is this: it’s going to be a risk if you go to the cinema,” the Swedish filmmaker, who was announced jury head for the Cannes Film Festival’s 76th edition on Tuesday, told PTI.

    In fact, he goes on to add somewhat controversially that he wants his new film, which features an eight-minute segment focused on a child getting bored, to cause the biggest walkout at Cannes.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Cannes audiences are notorious for their extreme reaction to movies which can range from long-standing ovations to straight walkouts.

    And Ostlund is actively seeking that extreme reaction by staging the story on a long haul flight with no entertainment system.

    “Soon after take-off, passengers get the horrible news that the entertainment system is not working. So when the iPhones and iPads are shorting out, we have modern human beings that have to deal with basically boredom and they’re lost with their own thoughts. And that is something that we human beings tend to see as something horrible. Basically, we don’t like that,” Ostlund told PTI in a virtual interview.

    The filmmaker, who started out by making films on skiing and action sports before his feature film debut with “The Guitar Mongoloid” in 2004, shot to international fame with 2014’s “Force Majeure” and 2017’s Palme d’Or-winner “The Square”.

    Then came ‘Triangle of Sadness’ in 2022.

    “Triangle of Sadness” again won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year and is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.

    If an avalanche is the centrepiece in “Force Majeure”, a monkey imitation act in “The Square” and a storm and resultant seasickness in “Triangle of Sadness”, boredom is the central theme in the next, he said.

    Ostlund said he will show an impatient little kid, his big brother and mother on the flight where the entertainment system is down and they have just one iPad.

    The little kid wants the iPad and the mother tells him to calm down and wait for eight minutes.

    “It’s going to be an anti-climax climax scene. I’m actually going to challenge the audience. I’m going to say to them, ‘okay, you have to deal with boredom now for eight minutes’. So we will have a real time shot when you see this little kid for eight minutes. Like, okay, how much time is left now? Well, now it’s seven minutes and 45 seconds. I think this scene is going to be the biggest walkout in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. That is my goal, at least.”

    He wants audiences to associate his brand of movies with some risk.

    “There has to be a risk to go to the cinemas. I think that if we’re going to the cinema and we have a collective experience, there has to be a risk involved, like for example, the vomiting in the ‘Triangle of Sadness’. How should I, when I go to the cinema, react. Well, there’s someone sitting next to me, so my reaction is going to be evaluated by that person.”

    ‘Triangle of Sadness’ will be released across 75 screens in India through Ashwini Kumar Sharma’s Impact Films on March 3 in cities such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi.

    The film, the 48-year-old Ostlund said, was born out of a desire to take a deep dive into the world of high fashion, life at a luxury yacht and an island.

    He wanted to explore the idea of beauty as a social currency, but reverse the gender gaze.

    “My wife is a fashion photographer and she told me about many of the models she is working with. They come from different parts of the society and many of them come from the working class. Beauty for them has been the ticket to travelling across society. Of course, this is a known fact for women because we live in a society where men have the resources,” he said.

    Describing the life of male models, who unlike their female counterparts are not at the top of the pyramid, Ostlund said it was interesting to look at it from the “male perspective”.

    “I was very interested in looking at our behaviour from this perspective in these times where the image of ourselves is the currency that a lot of us are using. We are using it much more now than we did 10 years ago. I thought it was interesting to look at beauty as a currency in the fashion world, on the yacht and what happens on the deserted island when a cleaning lady who knows how to fish ends up on top of the hierarchy. In fact, a crucial scene in ‘Triangle of Sadness’, where the two characters are fighting over who should pay the restaurant bill, is taken directly from Ostlund’s own life when he first met his wife.

    Terming sociology his favourite subject, Ostlund said he is dealing with set ups that are similar to sociology where there are two or more choices but none of them are easy.

    “If I look at my own life, these dilemmas are connected with gender expectations. So how does the culture expect me to be as a man. What happens when I say I don’t want to pay the bill at a restaurant even though the gender expectation is that I should. These are conflicts that I myself have had with the culture. I want to be free but I don’t feel free.”

    Any interview on ‘Triangle of Sadness’, which in the modelling world refers to the area between the eyebrows, is incomplete without talking about the chaotic scene filled with vomiting guests and a broken sewage system. Amid all the fine dining, chaos and storm, Woody Harrelson’s Marxist captain engages in a rousing discussion on communism with a Russian businessman.

    Ostlund said it was a hard scene to shoot and his crew fell seasick while working for eight hours on a rocking set but he enjoyed putting the ideological discussion in the middle of it.

    “What I enjoyed a lot while I was writing the film was to go into these two different ideologies. These two different forces, when I was brought up in the ’80s, were bashing their heads against each other. It was socialism and individualism and neoliberalism on one side. I have, as a Swede, constantly navigated myself through these two different ideologies and my mother is a left wing, she still considered herself a communist,” he recalled.

    While ideological discussions were a huge part of his life growing up, he felt that “we have left this world behind” now.

    “Now we have stopped being fans of an ideology. But it felt like when the conflict with Russia and Ukraine happened, all of a sudden the world was in the west and an eastern perspective again, in some ways. But I love to go into these old quotes by (Ronald) Reagan and (Margaret) Thatcher and Lenin and Marx and see what they actually say. And to play around with this.”

  • Cannes film festival winners announced, full list here

    By AFP
    The Cannes film festival ended Saturday in the south of France with the awarding of its top prize, the Palme d’Or.

    Here is a list of the main winners:

    – Palme d’Or: Julia Ducournau for “Titane” (France)

    – Grand Prix: Shared by Ashgar Farhadi for “A Hero” (Iran) and Juho Kuosmanen for “Compartment No.6” (Finland)

    – Best director: Leos Carax “Annette” (France)

    – Best actress: Renate Reinsve for “Worst Person in the World” (Norway)

    – Best actor: Caleb Landry Jones for “Nitram” (US)

    – Best screenplay: Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Takamasa Oe for “Drive My Car” (Japan)

    Jury prize: Shared by Nadav Lapid for “Ahed’s Knee” (Israel) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul for “Memoria” (Thailand)

    Best first film: Antoneta Kusijanovic for “Murina” (Croatia)

    Best short film: Hong Kong’s “All The Crows In The World” Tang Yi

  • ‘Titane’ director Julie Ducournau announced Palme d’Or winner, becomes second woman to win Cannes top prize

    CANNES (France): Shock-fest “Titane” took home the top Palme d’Or prize at Cannes on Saturday, revealed early at the closing ceremony in an embarrassing slip-up by jury president Spike Lee.

    French director Julie Ducournau is only the second woman to scoop the prize, for a movie that was one of the wildest, sexiest and most violent ever shown at the Cannes film festival.

    “It’s the first film ever where a Cadillac impregnated a woman. That blew my mind!” Lee said. “That’s genius and craziness together.”

    “Titane” tells the story of a woman who has sex with cars and kills without a care, with brutal scenes that had many cinema-goers shielding their eyes during the opening night.

    Lee, the first black man to lead the jury, read out the winner at the very start of the prize ceremony, rather than introducing the first award of the night for best actor. 

    After an awkward pause and regrouping, the best actor award went to US actor Caleb Landry Jones for his chilling performance in “Nitram” about Australia’s worst mass shooting. 

    Making a film about the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, in which 35 people died, triggered harsh criticism of director Justin Kurzel in Australia. 

    But critics were won over at the Cannes premiere, with Variety calling it a “devastating study of atrocity” that shows “quiet respect for the victims’ dignity”. 

    It was a huge night, too, for the previously unknown Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve, who was rocketed to stardom by her role in “Worst Person in the World”. 

    Her role as a twenty-something searching for her identity and pinballing through relationships was a sensation, and caught the 33-year-old totally unprepared. 

    “No one has seen me in anything,” she told AFP after the premiere. “The other day I woke up and I puked. And today I woke up and I cried.”

    ‘Letting the monsters in’ When it finally became time to announce the Palme d’Or for real, Lee said: “I apologise for messing up.”

    But then he almost fluffed the presentation again, starting to announce the winner rather than presenter Sharon Stone, by which point Ducournau was giggling in the audience. 

    She still broke into tears when the official announcement was made, and told the crowd: “This evening has been perfect because it’s been imperfect.

    “Thank you for letting the monsters in.”

    The only other woman to win the top prize is Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993.

    Other winners on the night included Leos Carax as best director for “Annette”, the flamboyant rock opera starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, and written by eccentric Los Angeles pop duo Sparks. 

    The second-prize Grand Prix was shared between Iran’s two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi (“A Hero”) and Finland’s Juho Kuosmanen (“Compartment No.6”), while best screenplay went to Japan’s Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Takamasa Oe for “Drive My Car”.

    The race had been wide open this year, with critics pointing to many possible successors to “Parasite”, the South Korean hit which took home the last Palme in 2019 before making history by triumphing at the Oscars.

    Last year’s festival was cancelled because of the pandemic. 

    The jury members watched a lot of sex this year, from lesbian nuns in Paul Verhoeven’s salacious “Benedetta” to a porn star returning to small-town Texas in “Red Rocket”, which scored well with critics. 

  • Excitement as Cannes Film Festival reopens after pandemic hiatus

    By AFP
    CANNES: The famed Cannes Film Festival opens Tuesday, and despite social distancing subduing some of its signature glamour, excitement is rife for the first fully-fledged film festival since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Last year’s edition was cancelled over the health crisis, and although stars will be allowed to go maskless on the red carpet this year, a health pass is required for entrance and many of the glitzy after-parties that are the festival’s calling card have been postponed because of distancing measures. 

    “Covid is still there, but being here for the return of the festival, in the opening film… it’s a huge sense of relief and excitement,” US actor Adam Driver told AFP. 

    Driver co-stars with French actor Marion Cotillard in the opening night film, “Annette”, a musical directed by cult favourite Leos Carax.  

    Members of the jury — headed for the first time by a black man, US director Spike Lee — arrived Monday night and will give their traditional press conference on Tuesday afternoon, before embarking on their 24-film marathon.

    The festival palace — a squat, concrete construction dubbed “the bunker” — is draped in a poster featuring Lee, in oversize spectacles, peering between two palm trees. 

    His jury this year has a female majority, including US actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, Canadian-French singer Mylene Farmer and French-Senegalese actor Mati Diop. 

    Other members include Tahar Rahim, star of 2009 film “A Prophet”, and South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who dazzled in the festival’s last winner two years ago, “Parasite”.

    ‘Be transported’ 

    As evening falls, stars will strut down the recycled red carpet, which has been chopped in size as part of a green makeover. 

    American actor and director Jodie Foster is guest of honour at the opening ceremony, and will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or before the screening of “Annette” gets underway. 

    The film is Carax’s first since “Holy Motors” nine years ago, which also competed at Cannes.

    It tells the story of a celebrity couple and their mysterious child, the titular Annette. 

    Cotillard told AFP that after months of pandemic-induced confinement, the tragic love story “invites the spectators to come and be transported, to be present at a great spectacle”. 

    Her co-star Driver famously hates watching himself on screen, and said this film will be no exception. 

    When the lights go out, he said he will flee to an office until it is finished. 

    “I sit there playing with a stapler or some scotchtape and come back when the lights are back on,” he smiled. 

    “And I act as if I’d been there the whole time!”

    ‘Packs a punch’ 

    This year, 24 films will compete for the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.

    Festival director Thierry Fremaux has promised that the line-up “packs a punch”.

    The directors vying for glory include such perennial Cannes favourites as Italy’s Nanni Moretti with his new film “Tre Piani,” France’s Jacques Audiard (“Les Olympiades”) and Thailand’s master of the slow burn, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, with his English-language debut (“Memoria”). 

    Other contenders include Sean Penn, whose Africa-based humanitarian love story “The Last Face” bombed at Cannes in 2016; Iran’s two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi; and Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, who is barred from leaving the country due to an embezzlement conviction widely seen as punishment for his criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

    With just four female directors in the competition, the festival’s tendency to pick the usual (male) suspects of the arthouse elite is once again under scrutiny.

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