Cannes – Saturday

Just arrived in Cannes, picked up the car and dropped bags off at villa and now off to pick up badge and tickets, hopefully in time to catch the 3pm screening of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet which Screen have just given a great review.

Picking up badge

[update: missed 'A Prophet' - by the time we'd got up our badges, dashing down the Croisette to pickup invitations and then back to the Lumiere for 3pm didn't seem feasible - in fact I missed all three screenings of it that I attempted to make this week, obviously I wasn't meant to see this film here, which is extra annoying as going back over the week I think it probably was the one film I would have enjoyed the most and I suspect a strongcontender for the Palm D'Or. Still at least I have it to look forward to when back in London - Optimum are realising it in the UK later this year]

Jacques Audiard's A Prophet

Popped in to the UK film pavilion and caught the end of interesting panel hosted by Power to the Pixel on digital financing and  distribution. Left the UK film pavilion and headed next door to AmPav to get some sun and read the dailies. 

The American Pavillion in Cannes

Grabbed dinner at La Pizza and then went off to meet friends at the Petit Majestic (as the de-facto and cheap, by Cannes standards, late night drinking hole de choix, the recession seems to have worked in their favour, certainly no sign of a slowdown here) finally finishing the night off in a more civilised fashion at the Grand (although after paying €12 for a small glass of Rose you feel like you’ve just been mugged, kicked in the gutter and then propped up in a plastic seat on the lawn, no wonder the Petit Majestic is rammed)

The Petit Majestic

Cannes 2009 – Line up Announced

Yesterday Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux announced the line up for this years festival and a pretty fantastic line up it seems to be too. New films from Almodóvar, Michael Haneke and Tarantino, for starters.

Variety describe the Competition line up as “Cannes’ biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown in recent years” and judging by the list of names their probably not far off the mark. Screen responsed to the announcement in much the same way “heavyweight Cannes line-up”

Over in Un Certain Regard this year is Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Day, with his new film Tales From The Golden Age. Originally the name of a set of scripts set in the Ceausescu era, of which 4 Months was supposedly one. It now seems to be the title of a single film described as  ”a collection of Romanian urban legends from the communist era“. Why has it been relegated to Un Certain Regard after a Palme d’Or win for 4 months is not yet clear, will have to wait and see.

Haven’t had time yet to go over all the competition and sidebar titles properly yet. Michael Haneke new  film The White Ribbon looks interesting and almost certainly slightly harrowing. The press notes describes it as follows “Some inexplicable events disturb the quiet life of a German village, just before World War I. A cable has been put up to trip the doctor riding his horse, a barn is set on fire, two children are abducted and tortured…” in other word classic Haneke material. Will Tarantino be back on form? Judging by the trailer it seems unlikely, but on the off chance he is it’s too good to pass over, so it’s firmly on my Cannes ‘to see’ list.

According to Screen, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro will now open Directors’ Fortnight despite him previously turning down an out of competition slot. After Youth Without Youth you have to wonder if Tetro is yet another dud and has been given the opening slot for Directors’ Fortnight simply because it’s Coppola.

Anyway, my accreditation has been confirmed so will have to wait to May to see which ones turn out to be worthy of the hype and which previously unheard of gem will set the Croisette buzzing this year.