Cannes Days

Captives, by Atom Agoyam

It seems we have the first big flop of the festival. 

This film, about an abduction and pedophiles, which at first resembles a little bit of Prisoners, has received the first major boos. I believe the latter would be a way worthier contender at Cannes! Some even say that it makes Grace of Monaco's debut less of an embarrassment.

There are plenty of people working behind the curtain, as the red carpet takes our attention. A lot of production professionals working their buts off, with plenty of new projects on the horizon.

From River Phoenix's last film "Dark Blood" being picked up, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Idris Alba working together in Bastille Day, bidding wars with films such as Carol and Jack Gyllenhaal's Nightcrawler, Matthew McConaughey and Vas Sant promoting themselves for their new project, Bradley Cooper and Todd Phyllips have a new production company and a new film and many many other projects...

Click here to see a list of the Women Centric films looking for deals at Cannes from Women and Hollywood.

 Red Carpet moment of the Day

Some unknown man hides inside America Ferrera's dress!

Queen Cate breaking everyone's hearts.

Drakarys!!

What?

Winter Sleep premiered today and it is one of the early favorites to win the Palme D'Or.

The reviews are good so far. 

This is one of the longest films at Cannes with three hours and fifteen minutes.

Carol - First Official Still

Cannes Days - The Queer Palm

The Queer Palm, or La Queer Palm, was created in 2010, where it reunites a group of journalists, LGBT film festival organizers and other artists and professionals of film industry as a jury to represent quality films that discuss gay, lesbian, bi, trans and gender issues. As they say, it’s about showing and promoting diversity in cinema.

The films come from the major selections of the festival. This year, the list brings six French productions, out of thirteen films.

In Competition:

Mommy, by Xavier Dolan.

Saint Laurent, by Bertrand Bonello.

Un Certain Regard

A Girl at My Door (Dohee-ya), by July Jung.

Party Girl, by Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis.

Xenia, by Panis H. Koutras.

Quinzaine des réalisateurs

Band des Filles, by Céline Sciamma.

Les Combattants, by Thomas Cailley.

Pride, by Matthew Warchus.

Whiplash, Damien Chazelle.

La Semaine de la Critique

Fa / Faire La’amour, by Djinn Carrénard.

Darker than Midnight (Più buio di messanotte), by Sebastiano Riso.

Respire, by Melanie Laurent.

When Animals Dream, by Jonas Alexander Arnby.

Cannes Days - Quote it

"It’s difficult… We become more and more indifferent to the horrors if we’re not careful."

Writer and Director Abderrahmane Sissako, with the film Timbuktu, In Competition.

Cannes Days - Review of the Day

From Indiewire, Eric Kohn writes:

"Céline Sciamma's 'Girlhood' Is One of the Best Coming of Age Movies In Years"

From Water Lilies to Tomboy, she now brings us Girlhood.

Cannes Days - Jane Campion on Sexism in the Industry

"... There is some inherent sexism in the industry. Thierry Frémaux told us that us only seven percent, out of the 1,800 films submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, were directed by women. He was proud to say that we had 20 percent in all of the programs. Nevertheless, it feels very undemocratic, and women do notice. Time and time again we don't get our share of representation. Excuse me gentlemen, but the guys seem to eat all the cake. It's not that I resent the male filmmakers. I love all of them. But there is something that women are thinking of doing that we don't get to know enough about. It's always a surprise when a woman filmmaker does come about."

I can't wait to watch the press conference.

Cannes Days - Carol Edition

Talking about Cate Blanchett!
Carol is being bought right now at Cannes. And I think it's going 'well', as I read there's some chaos going on...
I read the script, by the way.

Carol and Therese are both attending the Cannes Film Festival...

About the script -

I am quite pleased with the reading of Carol’s script.

I believe it is quite faithful in its essence and especially convincing and poignant in the lines added in this adaptation to the screen. There are plenty of faithful moments to the book; there are plenty of words these characters say that will take you immediately to the book. But the most important thing to me, even if there were none of those moments, is that the script represents a woman, actually two women, who stand for themselves, two women who were clearly beyond their time. Even for today. Two women that quite soberly fight for what they believe and want out of life and who are bold enough to be who they are. And by showing this, the script becomes immediately successful in its adaptation, because Patricia Highsmith book to me is all about that, a book beyond its time.

And really, besides being brave women, they’re decent great women.