Cannes to make history with screening of BBC crime series

Festival to show episodes of Top of the Lake as chiefs acknowledge changes in the industry

FOR several years, the broadcast industry has been talking of a “golden age of television” which has seen Hollywood talent flock to the small screen.

This week, the Cannes Film Festival will make that hype official, as it honours a BBC crime series with the first full television screening in its 70-year history.

The second series of Top of the Lake, created and co-directed by Jane Campion, will be shown in the festival’s theatre on Tuesday. It stars Nicole Kidman as a character she describes as a “radical feminist lesbian”.

The inclusion of television comes in a year of change for the festival, which has also experimented with allowing Netflix-funded films released via digital streaming to compete for the Palme d’Or.

While Top of the Lake is not in the running for prizes, it has been gladly accepted by festival directors in honour of Campion, who was the first woman to win the Palme d’Or and served as president of the jury in 2014.

Lucy Richer, senior commissioning editor at the BBC and executive producer on the show, said its inclusion reflected the changing world of television as more and more filmmakers choose to tell stories over longer series.

Two episodes of the show will screen in Cannes, with the full six hours due on BBC Two later this year.

Richer said: “It was a huge accolade for them [Cannes] to decide to take Top of the Lake, ke, and absolutely wonderful to do it.t

“Jane is such a genius and d visionary filmmaker, and she works in Top of the Lake at that cutting edge where film and television meet.

“It’s appropriate for it to be there and yet utterly appropriate for its home to be on the small screen. So it’s a lovely thing that it’s in Cannes.

She added: “I think it shows what TV is now able to offer as a medium to filmmakers worldwide.

“When Jane came to us, she said, ‘I want to make a novel for screen and I need more than 90 minutes to do that and I want to tell it over six hours’.”

The drama tells of a detective, Robin Griffin, played by Elisabeth Moss, below, who returns to Sydney to track down the daughter she gave up for adoption. Alice Englert, Campion’s own daughter, plays the grown-up child, with Nicole Kidman her adoptive mother.

In coming seasons the BBC will screen new dramas by Hollywood writer Kenneth Lonergan and award-winning director Steve McQueen, both known for their work in film. Top of the Lake will be joined in the Cannes celebration of tele- vision by David Lynch’s new version of Twin Peaks, an 18-part series. Richer said the event was “celebrating a piece by one of our greatest filmmakers whose heritage and history is in film but who is now working in television”. “It’s celebrating an extraordinary story, really well told, by a brilliant filmmaker, at one of the world’s greatest film festivals,” she said. “For me it’s that simple.” Asked about her four festival projects by trade magazine Variety, Kidman said: “I’m not the quee queen of Cannes. I’m just a hired actor going to Cannes on four different projects. “I don’t know if I can do all of them, right? But I will be there supporting my directors, and I’m just happy to be in a position where I’m working.”

‘I think it shows what TV is now able to offer as a medium to filmmakers worldwide’

Aishwarya Rai, the Indian actress, was among the stars on the Cannes red carpet for 120 Battements Par Minute. The film, which tells the story of a youth movement in Paris, has received early acclaim at the festival, which is celebrating its 70th year.