The selection of films has been made and now it’s time to get in the race, accommodate the film critics, celebrities and their spouses (or girlfriends and boyfriends…) and get those beaches cleaned…It’s time for some serious foie gras, croissants and truffles…
Starting on May 12, the Cannes Film Festival’s jury and screeners are ready to cast some votes. The selection of the films in competition has been made and announced. So, who is going to win? We won’t know until the 23rd of May…
I’ve stressed enough in my previous articles that I’m a true film lover. If it was not for the cinema, I wouldn’t know how I’d acculturate my life, aside from art and literature – there is just cinema for me…and travel. For some, it’s opera and classical music, for others – it’s cinema.
Moreover, knowing that Tony Gittens, the founder and director of the Washingtonian FilmFest DC is going to be at the Cannes Film festival again this year to see and select the films to show to us – the Washingtonians, next year, makes is so much more interesting and thrilling because it’d be nice to know if next year we’d be watching some award-winners. So far, the FilmFestival has been filling theatres to the fullest, with people lining up way before the showtime to see Polish, Serbian, Romanian, Italian, Swizz, German, Russian, Spanish films and films from other countries this year.
There will be 16 films competing for the Cannes’ Palme d’Or this year and the selection of the movies includes both prominent directors from around the world and some newcomers. Directors and films in competitions are: Mathieu Amalric (Tournee), Xavier Beauvois (Des Hommes et des Dieux), Rachid Bouchareb (Hors La Loi), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Biutiful), Mahama-Saleh Haroun (Un HOmme Qui Crie), Im Sangsoo (The Housemaid), Abbas Kiarostami (Copie Conforme), Takeshi Kitano (Outrage), Lee Chang-dong (Poetry), Mike Leigh (Another Year), Doug Liman (Fair Game), Sergei Loznitsa (My Joy), Daniele Luchetti (La Nostra Vita), Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun-2), Bertrand Tavernier (La Princesse de Montpensier), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Long Boonmee Raleuk Chat).
As the director of the festival, Thierry Fremaux, pointed out during a press conference: Cannes Film Festival is always open to experimental and innovative works, produced in the countries, where the film-making industry is still developing.
The feature film jury includes a truly international group of filmmakers: Tim Burton, Kate Beckinsale, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Alberto Barbera, Emmanuel Carrere, Benicio Del Toro, Victor Erice, and Shekhar Kapur. So, if it’s not for the movies, than at least to sightsee the celebrity-full grand jury would satisfy paparazzi…
The festival also expects to screen the latest from Woody Allen - "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" and Oliver Stone - "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps", out of completion though.
If you are planning to visit Cannes during the festival, I’d suggest to say in the suburbs, which offer lower hotel rates, as well as low prices on anything – from food to transportation as it’s a known fact that during those two weeks of the festival, the prices go up in the area…
Or you can always stay in Nice, which is about 2 hours away from Cannes and is a beautiful port city of its own. Fly to Paris and take a local airline via ryanair.com or easyjet.com, which offer flights anything from $55 per airline ticket one way, which is way less expensive than taking a train that costs anything from $176 to $329 a ticket.
Once in Nice, you can rent a car and explore the south – or – Provence of South of France, any city on the south is about 30 min to 3 hrs. apart: Nice, Cannes, Toulon, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Nimes, Montpellier…(As a matter of fact, we're going to use the same route at the end of May, when I go to Paris and then the South of France.)
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