Excitement as Cannes Festival reopens after pandemic hiatus
CANNES: The famed Cannes Film Festival opens Tuesday, and despite social distancing subduing some of its signature glamour, excitement is rife for the first fullyfledged film festival since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year’s edition was cancelled over the health crisis, and although stars will be allowed to go maskless on the red carpet this year, a health pass is required for entrance and many of the glitzy after-parties that are the festival’s calling card have been postponed because of distance measures.\
“Covid is still there, but being here for the return of the festival, in the opening film... it’s a huge sense of relief and excitement,” US actor Adam Driver said.
Driver co-stars with French actor Marion Cotillard in the opening night film, “Annette”, a musical directed by cult favourite Leos Carax.
Members of the jury — headed for the first time by a black man, US director Spike Lee — arrived Monday night and will give their traditional press conference on Tuesday afternoon, before embarking on their 24-film marathon.
The festival palace — a squat, concrete construction dubbed “the bunker” — is draped in a poster featuring Lee, in oversize spectacles, peering between two palm trees.
His jury this year has a female majority, including US actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, Canadianfrench singer Mylene Farmer and French-senegalese actor Mati Diop.
Other members include Tahar Rahim, the star of the 2009 film “A Prophet”, and South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who dazzled in the festival’s last winner two years ago, “Parasite”.
As evening falls, stars will strut down the recycled red carpet, which has been chopped in size as part of a green makeover.
American actor and director Jodie Foster is guest of honour at the opening ceremony, and will be awarded an honorary Palme d’or before the screening of “Annette” gets underway.
The film is Carax’s first since “Holy Motors” nine years ago, which also competed at Cannes.
It tells the story of a celebrity couple and their mysterious child, the titular Annette.
Cotillard told AFP that after months of pandemic-induced confinement, the tragic love story “invites the spectators to come and be transported, to be present at a great spectacle”.
Her co-star Driver famously hates watching himself on screen, and said this film will be no exception.
When the lights go out, he said he will flee to an office until it is finished.
“I sit there playing with a stapler or some scotchtape and come back when the lights are back on,” he smiled.
“And I act as if I’d been there the whole time!”