Cannes competition lineup announced; nothing from Netflix
PARIS: Spike Lee and JeanLuc Godard will compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes next month, but a posthumous movie by Orson Welles will not be screened due to a dispute between the film festival organisers and Netflix.
Announcing the lineup for the festival that runs from May 819, artistic director Thierry Fremaux said he regretted the absence of Netflix, which has said it cannot abide by rules that would force it to release them in French theatres, delaying its ability to stream them.
‘‘It’s a pity,’’ said Fremaux. ‘‘Everybody wished to see the film.’’
Netflix had planned to present The Other Side of the Wind, a movie Welles shot in the 1970s but never finished editing, as well as They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, a documentary about the filmmaker, who died in 1985.
The competition will open with Todos Los Saben (‘‘Everybody Knows’’), a film starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem made in Spain by doubleOscar winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi.
Among the close to 20 contenders in the main competition is Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, about an AfricanAmerican police officer who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan.
At the age of 87, Cannes darling Godard returns with Le Livre d’Image (‘‘The Image Book‘‘) and Oscarwinning
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski will present Cold War.
Cannes is the biggest gathering of the global movie industry, a glamorous occasion where photographers as well as stars must comply with a strict redcarpet dress code, and Fremaux confirmed that the festival wanted to stop the undignified modern habit of selfietaking.
Anyone trying to pull a fast one with their mobile phones on the redcarpet risks being ejected. — Reuters