Every May, the Cannes Festival takes over the town and the world’s tabloids
Professionals from the film industry, international stars and future actors blend with the avid mass of images and surprising meetings. Glitter, stars, rumours and also scandals and diplomatic affaires… the Cannes Festival is the place where all attentions is focused for a fortnight. Major events or minor anecdotes sometimes take on excessive dimensions, and some have even created their own legend.
Alejandro GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU, Chairman of the Jury
The Mexican director, Alejandro GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU is the Chairman of the Jury for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival He is thus following on from Cate BLANCHETT (2018), Pedro ALMODOVAR (2017) and George MILLER (2016). A director, producer and screenwriter, and winner of several Oscars, he is currently not only one of the most famous and respected movie makers in the world, but also the first Mexican director to have won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
On entering the world of feature films with “Amores Perros” (2000), a drama that explores Mexican society through three stories connected by a car accident, he was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. In 2003, he made “21 Grams”, his first American film, for which Naomi WATTS and Benicio DEL TORO were both nominated for an Oscar. In 2006, he directed “Babel”, which won the Best Director Award at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. This was then followed by “Biutiful” (2010) and “Birdman” (2015) (Best Director, Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography Oscars). In 2016, he won his second Best Director Oscar for “The Revenant”, a reflection on vengeance, the extermination of Native Americans and the exploitation of nature.
“The Dead Don’t Die”, the new film by Jim JARMUSCH screened as a global premiere, in competition and as the film.
The living dead will inaugurate the red carpet this year. “The Dead Don’t Die”, Jim JARMUSCH’s next film, will open the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. Used to climbing the steps, the director of “Dead Man” and “Down by Law” is thus making his 13th appearance on La Croisette, the last ones being with “Paterson” in 2016 and “Only Lovers Left Alive” in 2013. The American film maker has won 4 awards during his trips to Cannes, and in particular the Grand Prix for “Broken Flowers” (2005) and the Caméra d’Or (best debut film) for “Stranger Than paradise” (1984).
Boasting a top-flight cast, including Bill MURRAY, Adam DRIVER, Chloé SEVIGNY and Tom WAITS, this madcap comedy tells the tale of a little village facing a zombie attack.
60th anniversary of the Marché du Film [Film Market]
Inseparable from the Cannes Film Festival, the Marché du Film has become the most important meeting platform in the world for film professionals. Every year, film makers, producers, international vendors, distributors and backers meet up here to form the partnerships that are the basis of the films of tomorrow. Created during the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the Cannes Film Market, the oldest in the world, begun in an informal fashion, with just a few dozen participants. Buoyed by its success, the market then became an integral part of the Cannes Film Festival as of 1961, before growing over the years. Among the new features for this 60th edition, in particular, there will be a day dedicated to animation, organized on 19 May in collaboration with the Annecy Animation Festival. Five feature films in development will be shown on this occasion, while there will also be a round table organized on the theme of distributing animated films for adults.