Cinema Life: Festival de Cannes 2011

21/05/2011

Festival de Cannes 2011 - Day 11

The Festival is going to an end with the last movie 'In Competition', which is the latest work of Radu Mihaileanu. "The Source" (original title "La Source Des Femmes") is a story of a little village somewhere in North Africa, where women always fetch the water. They are bored of this work, so they're making a sex strike to force men to provide the water into the village. The director with actors gave a press conference and told that his movie is a reflection of the revolutions in the Arab world: "These revolutions represent a huge step forward. We wrote the film with the same sort of intentions, and we bet on the chance that women would be the ones to bring change, not simply throughout the world but especially in the Muslim world." Also he added that the village in his movie is not less important than its characters: "The main character in the film is the village. It was amazing, with ochre colours, that earth… it needed just a little bit of colour. We made the decision to borrow from the culture of all the Arab countries without betraying the unity of the Arab-Berber Moroccan whole. We used blues, yellows, oranges. The light was kind to all of the colours, the ochre, the walls, and skin tones as well." As for the photocall, the actresses looked very cheerful, so I hope they portrayed their characters with such passion.

A movie, which is chosen to close the Festival, is "The Beloved" (original title "Les Bien-Aimés") by French screenwriter and director Christophe Honoré. He presented his movie along with actors Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel, Paul Schneider, Christophe Honore, Laudivine Sagnier, Rasha Bukvic and the composer Alex Beaupain. This musical shows two love stories, which are survived by a mother and her daughter and takes place in the 1960s and 1990s, happening in Prague, Paris and London. The director told the journalists about how he understands the filmmaking: "I've never been of the view that the role of cinema is to film everyday life, but I do try to make films that are true to life." Catherine Deneuve said about working with Christophe Honoré: "I’ve always liked Christophe’s way of portraying female characters and love affairs. When I heard about the project, I was immediately interested. During filming, Christophe was very attentive, friendly and open." The screening of the movie will be tomorrow, May 22, but some critics, who just saw it, think it is very boring, except the decor.

The last movie presented 'Un Certain Regard' is "Elena" by Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose movie was once nominated for a Palme d'Or. This year he came to tell a dramatic story about complicated relationships between parents and sons. Can it be interesting? I think definitely yes - this movie just got SPECIAL JURY PRIZE.

And tomorrow we will discover who earned the other awards. There are rumors that "Drive" by Nicholas Winding Refn has good chances to win.

"The Sourse" photocall - Radu Mihaileanu, Leila Bekhti, Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbas, Sabrina Ouazani, Biyouna

"The Beloved" photocall - Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel, Paul Schneider, Christophe Honore, Laudivine Sagnier, Rasha Bukvic, Alex Beaupain