Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Alexandra, film's team© ALB
Georges Clooney - Ocean's Thirteen© DC
Alexandra, film's team© ALB
Martin Scorsese - Cinema Masterclass© DC
Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Photos of 25 May 2007
Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Alexandra, film's team© ALB
Georges Clooney - Ocean's Thirteen© DC
Alexandra, film's team© ALB
Martin Scorsese - Cinema Masterclass© DC
Ocean's Thirteen - Red Steps© BBQ
Promise Me This
Two-time Palme d’Or winner for When Father was Away on Business in 1985 and Underground in 1995, Emir Kusturica is once again showing a film in the Official Competition entitled Promise Me This. The action takes place in the Serbian countryside and centers on the promises made by Tsane (Uros Milovanovic) to his aging grandfather (Aleksandar Bercek): go over the three hills into the nearest town and sell their cow at the market there. With the money, Tsane must buy a religious icon and then anything else he wants. Lastly, the biggest challenge: he must find a wife to bring home.
Promise Me This tells the story of a boy who promises his grandfather that he will return to his village a man. Kusturica, who was president of the Jury in 2005, is back in Cannes with offbeat tales of trials and tribulations of life in the Balkans and a glimpse of another world, while touching on universal values and issues.
Photo Copyright AFP
Cannes Film Festival drawing to a close with offbeat comedy
The 22-film competition for the Cannes Film Festival's top honours drew to a close Saturday with an offbeat comedy by Belgrade-based director Emir Kusturica. Promise Me This tells the story of a young man, Tsane, from a small remote hilltop village being dispatched by his grandfather on a journey to sell their cow and to find a wife.
Tsane embarks on his journey against the backdrop of a round of noisy brass-band and accordion music and a wacky plot which includes the plans by the mafia to build a new World Trade Center in Serbia.
"It's like the craziness as observed by a crazy guy," said Kusturica, who has already won the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) twice.
"Today, even if we are older, we are becoming more like global retarded teenagers who don't ask questions, who don't ask deep questions, and I'm still trying to do a little bit of this," the 52-year-old Kusturica said.
While he may have acquired celebrity status in the international cinema world, opinion about him and his works is divided in the former Yugoslavia, in particular in his native Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Against the backdrop of the bloody events during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kusturica abandoned his homeland, sided with the Serb cause and renounced any connection with Sarajevo.
Taking the Palm d'Or for Promise Me This would make Sarajevo-born Kusturica, the first ever director to win the festival's top prize three times.
The Cannes jury, which is being presided over by the British director of The Queen, Stephen Frears is due to announce its decision on the world's leading film festival's awards on Sunday.
But the decisions of film festival juries are notoriously difficult to predict, and the competition for the Palme d'Or still appears to be a tight race between a handful of films.
This includes the thriller by US director brothers Joel and Ethan Coen No Country for Old Men and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days about repression during the dark days of Nicolae Ceaucescu's reign.
Other possibilities include Persepolis, an animation movie about coming of age during Iran's Islamic revolution, which has led to complaints from Tehran.
US painter-turned-director Julian Schnabel's moving The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), on the life of a man trapped inside his own body has also won plaudits in Cannes.
The same is true for Secret Sunshine by leading Korean director Lee Chang-dong which tells the story about a women's emotional decline under almost unbearable personal pain.
Tsane embarks on his journey against the backdrop of a round of noisy brass-band and accordion music and a wacky plot which includes the plans by the mafia to build a new World Trade Center in Serbia.
"It's like the craziness as observed by a crazy guy," said Kusturica, who has already won the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) twice.
"Today, even if we are older, we are becoming more like global retarded teenagers who don't ask questions, who don't ask deep questions, and I'm still trying to do a little bit of this," the 52-year-old Kusturica said.
While he may have acquired celebrity status in the international cinema world, opinion about him and his works is divided in the former Yugoslavia, in particular in his native Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Against the backdrop of the bloody events during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kusturica abandoned his homeland, sided with the Serb cause and renounced any connection with Sarajevo.
Taking the Palm d'Or for Promise Me This would make Sarajevo-born Kusturica, the first ever director to win the festival's top prize three times.
The Cannes jury, which is being presided over by the British director of The Queen, Stephen Frears is due to announce its decision on the world's leading film festival's awards on Sunday.
But the decisions of film festival juries are notoriously difficult to predict, and the competition for the Palme d'Or still appears to be a tight race between a handful of films.
This includes the thriller by US director brothers Joel and Ethan Coen No Country for Old Men and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days about repression during the dark days of Nicolae Ceaucescu's reign.
Other possibilities include Persepolis, an animation movie about coming of age during Iran's Islamic revolution, which has led to complaints from Tehran.
US painter-turned-director Julian Schnabel's moving The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), on the life of a man trapped inside his own body has also won plaudits in Cannes.
The same is true for Secret Sunshine by leading Korean director Lee Chang-dong which tells the story about a women's emotional decline under almost unbearable personal pain.
DPA
PRESENTATION OF THE SHORT FILMS IN COMPETITION
The official screening of the short films In Competition occurred on this eleventh day of the Cannes Festival. An international Jury, chaired by Chinese director Jia Zhangke and having as members the Iranian actress and filmmaker Niki Karimi, American film costume designer Nadoolman Landis, French writer J.M.G. Le Clézio and European director Dominik Moll, will be awarding a Short Film Palme d'Or to one of the eleven films in the selection at the Festival's closing ceremonies.
This year, the European continent has five shorts in the running for the special Palme d'Or : Résistance aux Tremblements by Olivier Hems (France), Ark by Grzegorz Jonkajtys (Poland), Gia To Onoma Tou Spourgitiou (In the Name of the Sparrow) by Kyros Papavassiliou (Greece – Cyprus), Spegelbarn (The Looking Glass) by Erik Rosenlund (Sweden, Finland), and Het Zusje by Marco Van Geffen (Netherlands). As for
Canadian animated short wins two awards at Cannes film festival
The Canadian animated short "Madame Tutli-Putli" has won two awards at the Cannes film festival.
The National Film Board of Canada short, from Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, won the Canal Plus Award for best short film and the Petit Rail d'Or for best short film, announced during the festival's International Critics' Week. "Madame Tutli-Putli" is a stop-motion animated film that follows a woman's existential journey aboard a night train. It features puppet animation and ground-breaking visual techniques.
It's the first film from Lavis and Szczerbowski. The pair were in France to accept the award.
The Canal Plus Award means that "Madame Tutli-Putli" will be broadcast on the French pay-TV channel. The directors will also be invited to the Moulin d'Ande, a historical monument and artists' retreat.
Lavis and Szczerbowski will also receive $6,000 in equipment from Panavision Alga Techno to shoot their next film. Le Petit Rail d'Or is awarded by a group of 100 cinephile railwaymen.
"Madame Tulti-Putli" will have its North American premiere at the Worldwide Shorts Festival in Toronto from June 12 to 17.
Cannes Attracts Hedge Funds, Private-Equity Firms
May 25 - Cannes, the world's most prestigious film festival, is drawing investment by hedge funds and private- equity companies in motion-picture financing, production and distribution.
Film production companies said the money is transforming the way some movies are being made and sold, with hedge-fund managers becoming piggy banks for the industry. Since 2005, funds and private-equity investors have committed at least $4.5 billion to films, betting that the box-office returns can beat other investments.
`There is an influx of capital into the market, and that's driven mostly by hedge funds,'' said Daniel Miller, a partner at Screen Capital International, a Los Angeles-based finance company for TV and filmmakers. ``A number of U.S. and European hedge funds have gotten interested in film.''
Miller, in an interview at Cannes, said the increased capital meant that ``any producer who can pull together just the equity portion of their budget, which is usually 20 percent, 10 to 20 percent, is able to get the rest of it pretty quickly.''
`Both at studio level and independent level you have so much capital available,'' said David Mollner, managing director at Screen Capital International. He said a lot of money `` is being deployed in new ways in the media, and one of them is to try and grab the power in the production, financing and distribution of motion pictures.''
Rows of Yachts
Banks and investment firms share moorings with film companies on the luxury yachts lined up at the festival. About 10,000 buyers and sellers hustle for a deal along the Croisette, the French city's main drag: There are 4,000 films taking part - -10 percent more than last year -- and 1,500 screenings across town.
William Pfeiffer, chief executive of Celestial Pictures, which has offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, said Asian films are doing well in attracting funding. ``Now I think that those films are doing so well on a consistent basis, that private-equity money is starting to come out to Asia.''
Vivek Sharma, marketing director at Future Capital Partners, a structured asset-finance company, said in Cannes that the investors also get ``a taste of the industry, the magic, the dream, as it were, that they invested in.''
Bill Gottleib, of Burbank, California-based Gorilla Pictures, said Cannes has become ``much more of a signing festival or market than it was in the past, and it's a good market for us.''
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Beech in London at mbeech@bloomberg.net .
Mark Beech in London at mbeech@bloomberg.net .
12 Angry Men
Jane Fonda is in Cannes to honor her father, Henry, at the homage screening of Sydney Lumet’s 1957 film, 12 Angry Men. She was given a standing ovation as she made her way to the stage on the arm of Gilles Jacob. She addressed the crowd in French extending her appreciation to the Festival for this evening and especially for having chosen this particular film in which Henry Fonda plays the member of a 12-person jury, the member who brings forth the dissenting vote that would ultimately turn the trial around. She talked about the values of justice that were also emblematic of her father.
Henry Fonda was associated with John Ford in such notable films as The Grapes of Wrath in 1940 and My Darling Clementine in 1946. After several years devoted to the stage, 12 Angry Men (Golden Bear at Berlin Festival in 1957) marked his return to the silver screen. In 1962 and 1965, he came to the Festival alongside Otto Preminger for Advise & Consent, and then Harm’s Way. In 1969, Sergio Leone cast Henry Fonda in the role of the bad guy in Once Upon a Time in the West. In 1978, he came to Cannes with Billy Wilder for Fedora. A mythical actor of the golden age of Hollywood motion pictures, Henry Fonda received the Oscar for Best Actor in 1982 for his performance in Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond.
Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case
This Saturday May 26, the documentary Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case will be presented to the public at 10:30pm . It is the documentary about the former Russian intelligence agent who died in a London 1:30pm at the Suquet terrace. Alexander Litvinenko's widow Marina Litvinenko and director Andreï Nekrasov spoke to reporters there. Excerpts follow.
Marina Litvinenko: "I am proud to be here for this film. It isn't easy. I haven't seen the film yet, because I didn't know if I'd be able to stand it. I will see it tonight. (…) I am very happy that everyone can see this film. It's important to make sure that what happened in November inLondon
Andreï Nekrasov: "Let's be frank: the fear is there, but there is also pleasure in speaking the truth. I am not a hero, but I derive pleasure from being honest and fair. This is the foundation of morality. The pleasure in truth is a stronger instinct than fear."
The director, who sympathizes with the opposition movement "The Other Russia" led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov, said he was "very grateful" to the Festival for having permitted him to show the world "the real Russia."
Marina Litvinenko: "I am proud to be here for this film. It isn't easy. I haven't seen the film yet, because I didn't know if I'd be able to stand it. I will see it tonight. (…) I am very happy that everyone can see this film. It's important to make sure that what happened in November in
Andreï Nekrasov: "Let's be frank: the fear is there, but there is also pleasure in speaking the truth. I am not a hero, but I derive pleasure from being honest and fair. This is the foundation of morality. The pleasure in truth is a stronger instinct than fear."
The director, who sympathizes with the opposition movement "The Other Russia" led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov, said he was "very grateful" to the Festival for having permitted him to show the world "the real Russia."
The Mourning Forest
Japanese director Naomi Kawase, presenting The Mourning Naomi Kawase on her personal experience: "My personal experience is based on my early childhood. I was raised by people who were far older than I, because my great-aunt is the person who raised me. I was thus two generations younger than she. She's the one who taught me to respect the sun, fire, and food. I was raised in a mystical relationship with nature and everything around me. I was also supposed to respect everything that is transmitted from generation to generation. In a way, this is the fruit of my personal experience, and this is what structured me."
Naomi Kawase on the genesis of the project: "I wanted to make this film because my grandmother was becoming slightly senile, and in today's world, these people are looked down upon somewhat, and pitied. We forget that it could happen to us someday. We also consider these people pitiful, whereas in fact, their soul has remained intact. They still have the soul of a human being, and human feelings, and we forget that feelings are something to be reckoned with. The soul should be returned to the center of human relationships."
On the fact that the film was selected at
Shigeki Uda: "It's wonderful to see this film leap from the Japanese scene to the international scene. It was already enough, and wonderful, to have acted in a film that would be seen in
Naomi Kawase: "I am very proud that this film was selected for the Competition. When I made it, I felt very strong and very sincere. The sincerity is something I passed on to my crew, who was wonderful. I placed a great deal of confidence in this film. I believe in it very much, and I believe in it even more, now that it has been selected. I am very honored that my film was chosen to be among the works that will go down in history as the 60th-anniversary works."
Shigeki Uda on preparing for his role: "I played the senile old man, and I think that every day that I live brings me closer to death. I think of death in a very natural way as being part of life. Right now, I am 60 years old, but in the film, I played a character who was 70. When I was on camera, I didn't forget that I was ten years older. To prepare for the role, I spent three months in a home for the elderly, a home that was used as a model for the film. I spent three months with people who were senile. I ate with them, I bathed with them, I lived with them, and I felt with them."
Cannes Film Festival: 2007
Date: 16 May - 27 May
Host: Diane Kruger
Jury: Stephen Frears (UK) (president); Maggie Cheung (Hong Kong); Toni Collette (Australia); Maria de Medeiros (Portugal); Sarah Polley (Canada); Marco Bellocchio (Italy); Orhan Pamuk (Turkey); Michel Piccoli (France); Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania); Zhang Ke Jia (China) (president) (short films); Niki Karimi (Iran) (short films); Deborah Nadoolman (USA) (short films); Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio (France) (short films); Dominik Moll (France) (short films)
In-Competition Films:
4 luni, 3 saptamini si 2 zile (2007) - Cristian Mungiu
Alexandra (2007) - Aleksandr Sokurov
Chansons d'amour, Les (2007) - Christophe Honor�
Death Proof (2007) - Quentin Tarantino
Import/Export (2006) - Ulrich Seidl
Izgnanie (2006) - Andrei Zvyagintsev
Luz silenciosa (2007) - Carlos Reygadas
Man from London, The (2007) - B�la Tarr
Milyang (2007) - Chang-dong Lee
Mogari no mori (2007) - Naomi Kawase
My Blueberry Nights (2007) - Kar Wai Wong
No Country for Old Men (2007) - Joel Coen; Ethan Coen
Paranoid Park (2007) - Gus Van Sant
Persepolis (2007) - Marjane Satrapi; Vincent Paronnaud
Scaphandre et le papillon, Le (2007) - Julian Schnabel
Soom (2007) - Ki-duk Kim (II)
Tehilim (2007) - Rapha�l Nadjari
Une vieille maîtresse (2007) - Catherine Breillat
We Own the Night (2007) - James Gray (I)
Yasamin kiyisinda (2007) - Fatih Akin
Zavet (2007) - Emir Kusturica
Zodiac (2007) - David Fincher
Best Short Film
In-Competition Films:
Ah Ma (2007) - Anthony Chen
Ark (2007) - Grzegorz Jonkajtys
Gia to onoma tou spourgitiou (2007) - Kyros Papavassiliou
Last 15, The (2007) - Antonio Campos (I)
My Dear Rosseta (2007) - Hea-Hoon Yang
Oates' Valor, The (2007) - Tim Thaddeus Cahill
Run (2007) - Mark Albiston
R�sistance aux tremblements (2007) - Olivier Hems
Spegelbarn (2007) - Erik Rosenlund
Ver llover (2006) - Elisa Miller (III)
Zusje, Het (2006) - Marco van Geffen
Cinefondation Award
Jury:
Zhang Ke Jia (China) (president) (short films); Niki Karimi (Iran) (short films); Deborah Nadoolman (USA) (short films); Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio (France) (short films); Dominik Moll (France) (short films)
Host: Diane Kruger
Jury: Stephen Frears (UK) (president); Maggie Cheung (Hong Kong); Toni Collette (Australia); Maria de Medeiros (Portugal); Sarah Polley (Canada); Marco Bellocchio (Italy); Orhan Pamuk (Turkey); Michel Piccoli (France); Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania); Zhang Ke Jia (China) (president) (short films); Niki Karimi (Iran) (short films); Deborah Nadoolman (USA) (short films); Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio (France) (short films); Dominik Moll (France) (short films)
In-Competition Films:
4 luni, 3 saptamini si 2 zile (2007) - Cristian Mungiu
Alexandra (2007) - Aleksandr Sokurov
Chansons d'amour, Les (2007) - Christophe Honor�
Death Proof (2007) - Quentin Tarantino
Import/Export (2006) - Ulrich Seidl
Izgnanie (2006) - Andrei Zvyagintsev
Luz silenciosa (2007) - Carlos Reygadas
Man from London, The (2007) - B�la Tarr
Milyang (2007) - Chang-dong Lee
Mogari no mori (2007) - Naomi Kawase
My Blueberry Nights (2007) - Kar Wai Wong
No Country for Old Men (2007) - Joel Coen; Ethan Coen
Paranoid Park (2007) - Gus Van Sant
Persepolis (2007) - Marjane Satrapi; Vincent Paronnaud
Scaphandre et le papillon, Le (2007) - Julian Schnabel
Soom (2007) - Ki-duk Kim (II)
Tehilim (2007) - Rapha�l Nadjari
Une vieille maîtresse (2007) - Catherine Breillat
We Own the Night (2007) - James Gray (I)
Yasamin kiyisinda (2007) - Fatih Akin
Zavet (2007) - Emir Kusturica
Zodiac (2007) - David Fincher
Best Short Film
In-Competition Films:
Ah Ma (2007) - Anthony Chen
Ark (2007) - Grzegorz Jonkajtys
Gia to onoma tou spourgitiou (2007) - Kyros Papavassiliou
Last 15, The (2007) - Antonio Campos (I)
My Dear Rosseta (2007) - Hea-Hoon Yang
Oates' Valor, The (2007) - Tim Thaddeus Cahill
Run (2007) - Mark Albiston
R�sistance aux tremblements (2007) - Olivier Hems
Spegelbarn (2007) - Erik Rosenlund
Ver llover (2006) - Elisa Miller (III)
Zusje, Het (2006) - Marco van Geffen
Cinefondation Award
Jury:
Zhang Ke Jia (China) (president) (short films); Niki Karimi (Iran) (short films); Deborah Nadoolman (USA) (short films); Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio (France) (short films); Dominik Moll (France) (short films)
60th Cannes Film Festival
Michael Moore
George Clooney
Gong Li, Andie MacDowell
Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin
Jean Reno, Patrice Ledoux
Asia Argento
Bai Ling
Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni
Claudia Schiffer© Reuters, AP, EFE
© Eric Gaillard, Daniel Deme, Christophe Karaba, Yves Herman,
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
© Eric Gaillard, Daniel Deme, Christophe Karaba, Yves Herman,
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
60th Cannes Film Festival
Eva Mendes
Wim Wenders, Takeshi Kitano
Pamela Anderson
Robert Rodriguez, Jim Jarmusch
Rosario Dawson, Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Quentin Tarantino
Samira Makhmalbaf
Sharon Stone
Jeremy Piven
Juliette Binoche
Martin Scorsese© Reuters, AP, EFE
© Eric Gaillard, Daniel Deme, Christophe Karaba, Yves Herman,
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
© Eric Gaillard, Daniel Deme, Christophe Karaba, Yves Herman,
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
60th Cannes Film Festival
Jessica Simpson
Jude Law
Kerry Washington
Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld
David Lynch
Devon Aok
Doutzen Kroes
Billy Zane, Kelly BrookFrank Miller, Kimberley Cox
Bai Ling
Billy Zane, Kelly Brook
Bipasha Basu
Bono
Chloe Sevigny, Jake Gyllenhaal, David FincherThe 60th Cannes Film Festival, which opened on Wednesday. But for the rest of the world, the festival is all about glam, glitz and photo opps. Yes, it's supposed to be about film. Yet it's also the world's most glamorous film event and the paparazzi are out in droves, ready to snap any mildly celebrated woman, or even someone as unseemly as Sacha Baron Cohen, on the beach in a thong. (Who could forget his Borat promo last year?)
The red carpets of New York, Paris, London and even the Academy Awards pale into insignificance when compared with the regalia and glamour of Cannes on the French Riviera, where the Palais colossus (where all the main events are held) boasts a magnificent staircase complete with military guard.
In comparison, it's surprising how drab a Los Angeles premiere can be, so when Americans are invited to Europe to prove their cinematic worth, they are often determined to make their over-the-top mark.
© AP, Reuters
© Richard Lewis, John Shearer, Jean Baptiste Lacroix,
George Pimentel, Tony Barson, Jeff Vespa
© Richard Lewis, John Shearer, Jean Baptiste Lacroix,
George Pimentel, Tony Barson, Jeff Vespa
60th Cannes Film Festival
Leo Di Caprio
Maria Menounos
Michael Moore
Pamela Anderson
Jean Claude Van Damme
Jerry Seinfeld© Reuters, AP, EFE © Eric Gaillard, Daniel Deme, Christophe Karaba, Yves Herman,
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
Jean Baptiste Lacroix, Daniele Venturelli, Richard Lewis, Jeff Vespa, Tony Barson.
60th Cannes Film Festival
Roman Polanski
Sharon Stone
Sophie Marceau
Victoria Silvstedt
Kerry Washington, Gong Li, Andie MacDowel © AP, Reuters
© Richard Lewis, John Shearer, Jean Baptiste Lacroix,
George Pimentel, Tony Barson, Jeff Vespa
© Richard Lewis, John Shearer, Jean Baptiste Lacroix,
George Pimentel, Tony Barson, Jeff Vespa
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