The Cannes Film Festival starts this Tuesday in France, without health restrictions, waiting for 35,000 people, with a program that echoes the war in Ukraine and that will feature eight Portuguese productions and co-productions.
The 75th edition of the Cannes festival returns to the usual May calendar, after two editions conditioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, opening with a comedy by Michel Hazanavicius, entitled “Z (comme Z)” and which was renamed “! Coupez!” to avoid any allusion to Russia.
Against the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, the festival announced that it will not host official delegations or those linked to the Russian government and included the film “Mariupolis 2”, by the Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, who died in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Among the films in official competition at Cannes are “Crimes of the Future”, by Canadian David Cronenberg, starring the Portuguese-Guinean actor Welket Bungué, “Stars at Noon”, by Claire Denis, “Triangle of Sadness”, by Swedish Ruben Ostlund, who in 2017 won the Palme d’Or with “The Square”, or “Tchaikovsky’s Woman”, a film by Russian dissident Kirill Serebrennikov, currently based in Berlin, after being authorized to leave Russia.
“Armageddon Time”, by North American James Gray, and “Decision to Leave”, by South Korean Park Chan-Wook, will also be in competition at Cannes.
Among the special sessions we highlight the film “The natural history of destruction”, a new work by the Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa that deals with the recent history of Europe in the 20th century, particularly in the period after the Second World War. Of the Portuguese cinema present this year in Cannes, “Restos do Vento”, by Tiago Guedes, will be out of competition.
In the competition for the Palme d’Or is “Pacifiction — Tourment sur les îles”, by the Spanish Albert Serra and with a Portuguese co-production. In the parallel program of the festival, in the Directors’ Fortnight there will be “Fogo-Fátuo”, by João Pedro Rodrigues, and in the Cannes Classics section “El silencio de Goya”, a Franco-Spanish-Portuguese co-production directed by José Luis López Linares .
During the Critics’ Week, “Ice Merchants”, an animated short film by João Gonzalez, “Alma Viva”, the first feature film by the Portuguese-French Cristèle Alves Meira, and “Tout le monde aime Jeanne”, the first feature film by the French Céline Devaux, shot in Lisbon and with a Portuguese co-production of O Som ea Fúria.
The film “Mistida”, by Falcão Nhaga, will be present in the Festival’s La Cinef program, dedicated to works made in the school context. Tom Cruise will be one of the honorees of this edition, with the premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick”, by Joseph Kosinski, and actor Forest Whitaker will be present to receive a Palme d’Or.
The jury that awards the Palme d’Or is chaired this year by the French actor Vincent Lindon and the Cannes festival ends on the 28th.
Source: Observadora
