take Cannes Festival At the opening of its seventy-fifth session a political dimension by providing a platform for the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky He emphasized in his speech, “We need a new Chaplin to prove today that cinema is not silent.”
The appearance of the Ukrainian president in an unannounced military dress on the screen of the Palace of Festivals was followed by prolonged applause from a group of the biggest names of the seventh art gathered at the opening of the festival, who stressed that the war “will be in all minds.”
“We will continue to fight, we have no other choice. I am convinced that (the dictator) will be defeated,” Zelensky stressed, referring to the Russian president. Vladimir Putin And Charlie Chaplin, which he often cited.
“In Ukraine, hundreds of people spend every day,” he said, wondering, “Will the cinema remain silent or raise the volume? Can the cinema stay out of everything that is happening?”
The political history of the festival
This word constitutes a new station in the political history of this festival, which was founded in 1939 in opposition to the Venice Festival in Fascist Italy. However, its first session was not held until 1946 due to the Second World War.
The head of the jury, the French actor Vincent Lyndon, said before that that “the festival has always welcomed and protected the greatest filmmakers,” stressing the “artistic and patriotic approach” to this global event.
“Can we not use cinema this universal emotional weapon to awaken consciences and remove indifference? I can’t imagine that,” he added.
In addition to the ban on participation of Russian official delegations, which was announced following the Russian attack on Ukraine, the war casts a shadow over the films selected in the official competition, starting with the film that opens this competition on Wednesday, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” by Russian dissident Kirill Serebrennikov. The ascension of this filmmaker, whose films were nominated three times at Cannes, for the first time, the ladder of the Palais des Festivals, will be of great symbolism.
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The festival will also include the screening of two films by Ukrainian directors Sergey Loznitsa and Maxim Nakonchny, as well as the latest work of the Lithuanian director Mantas Kverdaravisius, who was killed in early April in Ukraine, entitled “Mariopolis 2.”.
Presence of Julianne Mor
Despite the atmosphere, Julianne Moore’s presence in Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut and Forest Whitaker sparkled, the latter receiving an honorary Golden Palm for his entire career.
Whitaker’s career, 60, was marked by winning the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Ugandan “dictator” Idi Amin Dada in Kevin MacDonald’s “The Last King of Scotland”, and for his starring role in Jim Jarmusch’s “Ghost Dog”.
This is not his first participation in the festival, as the black American actor who heads a non-governmental organization that fights poverty from South Sudan to Mexico and passing through the French region of Seine-Saint-Denis, had previously won the Best Performance Award in 1988 for his role in the character of an instrumentalist Jazz Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”.
The American actor said that this award “changed my life and secured for me recognition as an artist and respect as an actor in the world. I was young at that period (26 years), and I was not accustomed to interviews and did not respond well to questions. I remember that I was in my room in Cannes with My brother who said: Imagine that you will be the winner tomorrow, and I told him you are joking.
The atmosphere changed following that with the screening of “Final Cat” by French director Michel Azanavicos, a parody of zombie films.
The film, which will be shown in theaters simultaneously with its broadcast at the festival, will serve as an outlet for the cinema sector, which is trying to recover from the “Covid-19” pandemic.
Azanavisos told AFP that the film is “joyful and focuses on entertaining viewers,” hoping that it “will be an encouraging step for directors to accomplish similar works.”
