‘Butterfly Vision’: Maksym Nakonechnyi’s Debut Is A Relevant, Resilient Ukrainian Drama [Cannes]

Nicole Kidman kicked off her relationship with Amazon Studios last year with great success. Her role as Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin‘s “Being The Ricardos” nabbed her a Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama win and a nomination for a Best Actress Oscar.

EXCLUSIVE: Nicole Kidman is reteaming with Amazon Studios for the Mimi Cave directed thriller Holland, Michigan. 

Lasting love. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka have defied Hollywood odds, spending nearly two decades together, but they didn’t always know they’d end up happily married.

Prince Harry was spotted showing his bond with composer David Foster, the husband of Meghan Markle's school friend Katharine McPhee at his polo match, where he fell off his horse, at the weekend. While the Duchess of Sussex, 40, and their children Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, opted to stay at home for the Santa Barbara Polo game, which took place near their home in California, the Duke of Sussex was supported by close friends instead. According to reports, Harry, 37, has developed a "close relationship" with his "other father" David in the months since his own with dad Prince Charles broke down.

Jessica Kiang It’s possible that the very first casualty of war is not truth, but nuance. Since Maksym Nakonechnyi’s grimly disturbing “Butterfly Vision” was conceived and shot, the protracted Donbas conflict during which it is set has flared into all-out war following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

David Muir has a close friendship with both Kelly Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos and he's there for their three children, Michael, Lola, and Joaquin too.The much-loved TV news anchor even showcased the bond he has with the famous family when their youngest shared photos of himself on Instagram last year soon after leaving home for college.MORE: Kelly Ripa shares fond memory of Ray Liotta from LIVE! following his deathALSO: HELLO! launches Jubilee T-shirt collection to celebrate Queen Elizabeth in styleThe now 19-year-old posted a series of snapshots from his university in Michigan where he has joined the wrestling program.WATCH: Kelly Ripa shares 'brutally' painful family moment Joaquin was wearing a University of Michigan singlet and showing off his muscular physique and not only did it get his parents' seal of approval, David gave it a thumbs-up too.While David didn't write a comment, he added a fist bump emoji as a high-five to Joaquin for his efforts. MORE: David Muir close to tears as he reports on horrific Texas school shootingMORE: David Muir shares adorable photo from home as fans see doubleDavid gave Joaquin's wrestling team photos the thumbs up The teen's social media followers - and his proud parents - commented on the images and wrote: "Legend," and, "machine," and another added: "Look at those guns!! Have a great wrestling season!!"Mark chimed in with two muscle emojis and Kelly simply wrote: "Dope."MORE: Kelly Ripa makes impassioned plea to viewers following Texas tragedyMORE: Kelly Ripa plays matchmaker for son Joaquin with surprising dateOther fans remarked on how much Joaquin is looking like his dad and said: "He's starting to look more and more like a young mark (not that you’ve changed much) y’all

The stars of the new movie Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, stepped out for a press conference and photo call at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

The major prize-winners at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival have yet to be announced, but there is no question about which film is the most important. “Butterfly Vision” doesn’t just have the distinction of being one of the two Ukrainian productions on display (the other being Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s “Pamfir”), it also tells a story about the effects of warfare both on Ukraine’s soldiers and the citizens who have waited for them back home. It is almost incredible that Maksym Nakonechnyi was able to finish “Butterfly Vision” and to bring it to Cannes, where he made a touching speech about the risk of Ukrainian culture being extinguished.

Arguably the most timely film in Cannes this year, Butterfly Vision will also likely remain one of the least seen, in that it exists overwhelmingly as a marker of a very specific time and place rather than as anything many people might actually choose to watch. Presented in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, this somber and sobering document about Ukraine appears to mix verité-style dramatized scenes with television and other visual material that is never less than tremendously grim. How and by whom it might be shown in the territories where viewers would most appreciate it is unclear; depressing hardly begins to describe it.

Marta Balaga When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, director Maksym Nakonechnyi – whose debut feature “Butterfly Vision” world premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard – was developing his next film – a comedy about flat-Earth conspiracy under the working title “The Earth Is Flat – I Flew Around It and Saw It.” But he is putting it on the backburner now, he tells Variety, because “this war has already changed everything.”“I wanted to make something that wouldn’t be directly influenced by the war, but then I understood it would be anyway. When we studied Ukrainian literature back at school, we used to complain about all these depressing, tragic stories.

Cannes Film Festival.Members of the production team for “Butterly Vision,” by Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechni, protested the ongoing war in Ukraine while on the red carpet Wednesday.In front of Salle Debussy, the second-largest theater in Cannes, the team — including producers Darya Bassel and Yelizaveta Smit, plus actress Rita Burkovska — held a banner that read, “Russians kill Ukrainians. Do you find it offensive or disturbing to talk about this genocide?”The sirens heard on the red carpet stairs were meant to symbolize air raids in Ukraine, while the protestors held signs that read “sensitive content” over their faces.Not only were they demonstrating the ongoing devastation in Ukraine, but they were also attempting to show the extent of Russian censorship.The film “Butterfly Vision” explores a similar idea, albeit in a fictional world.

Cannes Film Festival was trembling for Austin Butler as the King in Baz Luhrmann’s world premiere of “Elvis.”The film received an uproarious 12-minute standing ovation, the longest of this year’s festival so far.As the the cheers went on and on, a teary-eyed Butler hugged an equally-emotional Priscilla Presley, who flew to the South of France to give her blessing for the movie about her late husband.The Warner Bros. musical drama had Cannes spontaneously erupting into applause as Butler recreated some of Presley’s greatest hits including “Jailhouse Rock,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Suspicious Minds.”“Elvis” is one of the biggest titles to screen at Cannes, with a star-studded carpet that included Sharon Stone, Shakira, Kylie Minogue, Diplo and Jeremy O. Harris.

Christopher Vourlias With the Cannes Film Festival abuzz ahead of the world premiere of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” a mournful air raid siren sounded over the Croisette on Wednesday afternoon, serving as a somber reminder that the war in Ukraine has entered its fourth brutal month.In a solemn protest outside the Salle Debussy, just steps from where Tom Hanks, Austin Butler and other stars of the “King of Rock” biopic were set to hit the red carpet at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the Ukrainian filmmaking team behind Un Certain Regard player “Butterfly Vision” made an impassioned plea that the world remember their country’s suffering.Standing on the steps of the Palais as the siren wailed – a nod toward the warnings that sound across Ukraine when a Russian attack is imminent – director Maksym Nakonechnyi, producers Darya Bassel and Yelizaveta Smit, and lead actress Rita Burkovska stood side by side with nearly two dozen members of the production team. They held translucent squares over their faces bearing the crossed-eye logo used on social-media platforms when content is considered sensitive or disturbing.

“The Five Devils,” from French director Léa Mysius, captivates from its very first seconds. We see Adèle Exarchopoulos in a sparkling gymnast outfit with other similarly dressed girls, all watching an enormous fire in the background; when she turns around, she is crying — fire, beauty, passion and death all conveyed in one image.

Ukrainian filmmakers are here in Cannes and, in the words of poet Dylan Thomas, they will not go gentle. While some are here to promote films screening here in Cannes, many are here to drum up support for their country and ensure that their voices are not forgotten as media headlines about the Russian invasion begin to diminish.

A silver spoon clunks loudly inside a bowl of beef broth. The meal — well, barely a meal — is served to Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps) twice a day, her diet a strict combination of insipid soup and wafer-thin slices of lemon.

Three Thousand Years of Longing” at the Cannes Festival on Friday.Wearing only panties drenched with blood-red paint, the screaming woman had the Ukrainian flag sprayed across her chest with the words “Stop raping us.” The word “scum” was also written on her lower back. Video posted to Twitter shows security personnel covering up the woman and escorting her off the carpet.

Between her job as a French-English interpreter, the prospect of romantic fulfillment, and the impending deterioration of her father’s health, the woman holding together all the threads in Mia Hansen-Løve’s “One Fine Morning” navigates a wide spectrum of human emotion. In the director’s follow up to last year’s English-language meta homage “Bergman Island,” Sandra (Léa Seydoux) oscillates between desire and grief with believable fluidity.