By JAKE COYLE – AP Film Writer
After the pandemic canceled the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, and the 2021 edition pared – even kisses barred on the red carpet – the lavish French Riviera cinema is set to return with a festival that promises to be a thing of the ordinary.
Or at least the very own brand of Cannes, where 12-day formals and movies mingle in sunny extravaganza, stopwatch festivities stretch for minutes on end and director names like “Kore-eda” and “Denis” speak with quiet reverence.
What would pass as usual in a city that was once not particularly ordinary, but it has proven remarkably resilient in the face of the vicissitudes of time. Since its first festival, in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II, Cannes has stood as an extreme spectacle that puts world cinema and the magic of the Cote d’Azur in the spotlight. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Festival de Cannes.
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“I hope it’s back to Cannes now,” says Robin Ostlund, who is back this year with “Triangle of Sadness,” a sequel to his Palme d’Or-winning movie “The Square.”
Ostlund adds: “It’s a great place if you’re a filmmaker. You feel like you get the attention of the movie world. To hear the hype, people talk about the different movies. Hopefully they’re talking about your movie.”
This year’s Cannes Festival, which opened on Tuesday with the premiere of zombie “Z” by director Michel Hazanavicius, will kick off not only the late tides of the pandemic and the rising tide but the biggest war Europe has seen since World War II in Ukraine. Started as a product of war – the festival was initially launched as a French rival to the Venice Film Festival, which Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler began to interfere with – this year’s Cannes Festival will reverberate again with echoes not so far-away conflict.
Cannes organizers banned Russians with ties to the government from participating in the festival. Several films from prominent Ukrainian filmmakers are scheduled to be shown, including Sergey Loznitsa’s documentary The Natural History of Destruction. His fiancée Hanna Belobrova will also show footage taken by Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvidaravic before his murder in Mariupol in April.
At the same time, Cannes will host more Hollywood stars than it has been for three years. Joseph Kosinski’s delayed “Top Gun: Maverick” due to the pandemic will be shown shortly before it opens in theaters. Tom Cruise will walk the carpet and sit down for a rare extended work interview.
“Every director’s dream is to be able to go to Cannes one day,” Kosinski says. “To go there with this movie and with Tom, to show it there and be part of the retrospective they are going to do for it, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” .
Warner Bros. will display. Premiere of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. George Miller, who was the last in Cannes with “Mad Max: Fury Road”, will start his fantasy sequel “Thee Thousand Years of Longing” with Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. Ethan Coen will be showing his first movie without his brother Joel, “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble with the Mind,” a documentary about the rock and roll legend made from archive footage. Also debuting: James Gray’s “The Time of Armageddon,” an autobiographical story set in New York with Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jeremy Strong.
Far from all Hollywood will be present. The Cannes regulations relating to theatrical release excluded live broadcasting services from the competition lineup from which the Palme d’Or was selected. French actor Vincent Lyndon is chairing this year’s jury.
Last year’s Palme award winner, Julia Ducornu’s “Titane,” which starred Lyndon, was only the second time the biggest honor has been given to a female filmmaker. This year, there are five films directed by women in competition for the Palme, a record for Cannes but a low percentage compared to other international festivals.
This year’s lineup is also full of veterans and past Palme d’Or winners, including Hirokazu Kore-eda (“The Medium”), Christian Mungiu (“RMN”), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenes (“Tori and Lukita”). Filmmakers such as Claire Dennis (“Stars at Noon”), David Cronenberg (“Future Crimes”) and Park Chan-wook (“Decision to Leave”) will join Palme, as will Kelly Richart, who re-teamed with Michelle Williams on “The Encore.”
Even with a solid roster full of Cannes stars, how far can the festival go back to antiquity? Last year’s edition of Light Crowds included a hideout inside theaters and regular COVID-19 testing for attendees. He continues to produce some of the year’s most popular films, including Best Picture-nominated “Drive My Car,” “The Worst Person in the World,” and “A Hero.” Cannes remains an unparalleled platform for the best in cinema, while still being subject to criticism for acting.
What’s unlikely to return anytime soon is the same amount of partying that marked the years when Harvey Weinstein was a ubiquitous figure at the festival. COVID-19 fears have not gone away. Attendees will not be tested and are strongly encouraged to wear masks. Few of the non-streaming companies have the budgets for lavish parties. Crowds will return to Cannes, but to what extent?
“It’s going to be different than it was before,” says Tom Bernard, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Classic and a longtime regular at Cannes. “Are they going to have parties? Are they going to have COVID concerns? Or is everyone going to go in there and just try to ignore things?”
Bernard noted that some practices in the Cannes market, where film distribution rights are bought and sold, are still hypothetical. He says initial meetings with the vendors, in which executives and producers typically cycle between hotels along the Croisette, have largely taken place over Zoom before the festival. Deal making has become more focused. Cannes, known for being both sublime and frivolous, is perhaps somewhat more sober.
“It’s a reshuffle of an event that has always been kind of the same, in every respect. The routine, I think, is going to change,” Bernard says.
The only thing that can be relied upon for sure in Cannes are the frequent, fervent suggestions for big-screen primacy, despite the nautical changes underway in the film industry. Some films, such as Östlund, co-starring Woody Harrelson, hope to span across the disparate film worlds that collide in Cannes.
“The goal we set ourselves was to bring together the best parts of American cinema and European cinema, to try to do something really fun and at the same time thought provoking,” Ostlund says.
Follow AP Film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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