Tall ends in glory. Having reached the last day, the Cannes Film Festival 2023 does not feel tired: the third of the Italians arrives, Alice Rohrwacher, with The chimeraand the great Ken Loach with The Old Oak. Both veterans here on the Croisette: she is at her fourth participation (she won the Grand Prix with The wonders in 2014 and the Prix du Scénario with Happy Lazarus in 2018), him in the seventeenth (with six assorted awards).
Charles from “The Crown”
Josh O’Connor in a scene from Chimera”.
As the protagonist of The chimerain the role of an English archaeologist involved in the illegal trafficking of archaeological finds, Rohrwacher wanted Josh O’Connor, also the protagonist of the next film by Luca Guadagnino but known to the general public above all as Prince Charles of the series The Crown. The cast of the film, set in the 1980s, also includes Isabella Rossellini, the Brazilian Carol Duarte and Alba (Rohrwacher).
Farewell master
The Old Oakwritten with longtime collaborator, Paul Laverty, it will probably be his last filmLoach said. «It takes a couple of years to prepare and I would have almost 90… My abilities decline, my memory fails and my eyesight is already bad». But he had also announced his retirement in 2014, and then he changed his mind… Let’s hope he does the same: his cinema attentive to the last would be missed. And this time he is no exception, telling us – through the lens of the busiest pub in a town in the North of England – the tensions that have arisen due to the arrival of Syrian refugees…
The first winners
A scene from “The Old Oak”, directed by Ken Loach.
With the projection of A nuit by Alex Lutz, story – out of competition – of the passionate one night encounter between Lutz himself and Karin Viard, closes A certain regardthe section of the Cannes Film Festival dedicated to little-known filmmakers and the most audacious works. From the jury, chaired by the American actor John C. Reilly, there are no leaks. He certainly doesn’t seem to be in pole position The New Boythe messianic film produced by and starring Cate Blanchett.
Blame J. Lo?
Ben Affleck and Alice Braga in “Hypnotic”, out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
Arrives – accompanied only by the director Robert Rodríguez and by one of the interpreters, William Fitchner – Hypnotic, a thriller that the director, a protégé of Tarantino, took more than twenty years to make. The absence of the protagonist, Ben Affleck, was not justified (does it have to do with the alleged quarrels on the street, paparazzi, with J. LO?), while it seems that Alice Braga, granddaughter of the unforgettable Sonia, had problems with flights … We will have to be content – barring last-minute surprises – with seeing them on screen in the role of a detective investigating the disappearance of his daughter and the psychic who helps him…
Paladin of the underprivileged
Out of competition too L’Abbé Pierre – A life of combat by Frédéric Tellier with Benjamin Lavernhe and Emanuelle BercotThe biopic traces the life of the Abbé Pierre (born: Henri Grouè), partisan, politician, French Catholic priest. Born in Lyon in 1912 and died in Paris in 2007, of wealthy origins, he fought against poverty, inequality and injustice, founding – in 1949 – the Emmaus Company. Several times proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize, it was always badly tolerated by the ecclesiastical hierarchies: a subject that would have made Marco Bellocchio happy too….
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