Early Highlights From Cannes 2021: Spike Lee, “Annette” & More
The 74th Annual Cannes Film Festival kicked off on July 6 after a two-year hiatus. Spike Lee became the first Black Cannes’ jury president, leading a nine-person jury that includes five women—French actress Melanie Laurent, American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, film directors Jessica Hausner and Mati Diop, and singer Mylene Farmer.
The opening ceremony saw the return of the most recent Palme d’Or winner, Bong Joon Ho (for Parasite) and Cannes veteran Jodie Foster,
Your 70th Cannes Film Festival Watch List
The most glamorous film festival in the world is upon us, where many a career has been made, re-made, and once in a while, nearly ruined. The 70th Cannes Film Festival begins today with a slate of intriguing films in various stages of production that are getting a lot of attention. Here's a look at some films you need to know about that will likely be the talk of Cannes in one way or another.
Director Paul Verhoeven
Sundance: Macon Blair’s Melancholy Assassin in Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin
Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin was a hell of a way to spend an afternoon in the theater here at Sundance. Saulnier’s film is a revenge story marked not by the mindless pursuit of retribution but rather a sad, resigned commitment to a dark task. Our protagonist, Dwight (Macon Blair, outstanding), openly acknowledges the pointlessness of his task while nonetheless trudging along its bloody contours to its bleak endpoint.
The film opens with a beautiful shot of a pristine white tile bathroom filling with steam.
Steven Soderbergh Through the Looking Glass: Behind the Candelabra
One of most fascinating developments out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh’s cinematic swan song, the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, in this year’s main competition as per the insistence of festival director Thierry Fremaux. Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his live-in lover Scott Thorson, and based on the Thoson-penned tell-all of the same name,
Jane Campion, Cannes, & the Power of the Short Film
Short films have figured prominently in the Cannes official selection from the Festival’s earliest days, with a jury awarding a Palme d’Or (and occasionally, Jury and Grand Prix prizes) to that year’s most successful short. Famous past winners include Jim Jarmusch’s 1993 Palme d’Or for Coffee and Cigarettes (Somewhere in California), which was later expanded into a feature-length portmanteau comprising 11 interlinked stories, and British director Lynne Ramsay’s 1996 and 1998 Jury Prize wins for her shorts Small Deaths and Gasman (Ramsay sits on the jury of the main competition this year).
Heavyweight American Films Populate the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival
The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival is nearly upon us. Running from May 15th to the 26th, the Festival has already been praised for a well-curated lot of films drawn from an eclectic mix of established and rising international filmmakers. This year’s competition films seem a placid bunch, likely to garner more reflection and praise than controversy, but with one of the most Hollywood- and American- leaning competition slates and jury committees in recent years,
Film Festivals Decoder: A Look At The World’s Top Film Fests
Sure, Sundance and Cannes have become household names, but did you know that there are nearly 4,000 film festivals held around the world every year? (There’s even a Moustache Film Festival in Portland, Maine.) The top-tier festivals have a glamorous reputation, but even at the ritziest ones, you’ll find up-and-coming independent filmmakers, film school students and everyday cinema enthusiasts rubbing elbows with A-list actors, producers and directors.
Last week marked the start of the 2012 Venice Film Festival and The Telluride Film Festival–and that's just the beginning of what will likely be the most dynamic film fest season to date.
