Cannes Annecy Animation Showcase Touts Ukrainian Industry Resilience

Though shot and set prior to the Russian invasion, by dint of being a Ukrainian picture detailing the aftermath of a woman soldier’s assault in the Donbas, “Butterfly Vision” lays claim to uniquely wretched timeliness at this year’s Cannes. What is an impressive if formally flawed first film from Maksym Nakonechnyi earns some emotional weight vis-a-vis present events: the Ukrainian flags of blue and white, flown with unsparing pride across Nakonechnyi’s images, bear the immediate frisson of beleaguered resistance, and that women Stateside presently face unprecedented threats to their bodily autonomy only compounds the miserable resonance.

NEON earned bragging rights tonight with the third consecutive Palme d’Or Cannes winner in a row, that being Ruben Östlund’s satirical comedy Triangle of Sadness, which was a huge crowd pleaser during the fest.

Naman Ramachandran Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top documentary award, the Golden Eye.The film won the documentary grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and was acquired by HBO Documentary Films during Cannes, where it played as a special screening.Set in Indian capital Delhi, where, in an unbreathable atmosphere, the threat of inter-religious massacres floats in the air, the film follows two brothers, Nadeem and Saud, who along with their assistant, dedicate their lives to save the migratory black kites that are destroyed by human madness.The Golden Eye jury, composed of Agnieszka Holland, Iryna Tsilyk, Pierre Deladonchamps, Alex Vicente and Hicham Falah, said: “The Golden Eye goes to a film that, in a world of destruction, reminds us that every life matters, and every small action matters. You can grab your camera, you can save a bird, you can hunt for some moments of stealing beauty, it matters.

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.

here. Earlier in the festival, an unplanned demonstration disrupted the red carpet for George Miller’s film “Three Thousand Years of Longing” when a topless, screaming woman wearing body paint of the Ukraine flag was escorted off the red carpet.

The Cannes Film Festival has had its third red carpet protest in the space of a week.

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.

Christopher Vourlias Ukraine’s Film.UA has closed a raft of deals during the Cannes Market, as the production and distribution heavyweight has defiantly continued to do business on the Croisette despite the ongoing war back home.Headlining the company’s Cannes slate is “Mavka. The Forest Song,” an animated feature about a magical spirit who’s responsible for protecting the forest from the outside world but faces her greatest challenge when she falls in love with a human.Manymore Films will be releasing the film in theaters across Scandinavia and has also acquired the rights to other projects in the Film.UA catalog.

CANNES, France -- Fashion models, Instagram influencers and Russian oligarchs collide on a yacht — and some very extreme sickness ensues — in Ruben Östlund's “Triangle of Sadness,” a social satire that had viewers at the Cannes Film Festival in hysterics.The Swedish filmmaker's latest, co-starring Woody Harrelson as a Marxist boat captain, has made one of the biggest splashes at this year's festival. At its premiere Saturday evening, there were such waves of laughter and applause that Östlund on Sunday compared it to a crowd at a soccer match.Östlund has already found an international audience for movies that take an uproarious, uncomfortable aim at money, masculinity and other big social targets in films like the Alpine marital drama “Force Majeure” (remade as “Downhill,” with Julia Louis Dreyfus and Will Ferrell) and the art-world satire “The Square,” which won the Palme d'Or top prize at Cannes in 2017.But in his first English-language film, and with a budget twice that of “The Square,” Östlund wanted to go even further with his particular brand of “rollercoaster for adults” cinema.“I wanted to do something that’s worth leaving your home and leaving your screens, leaving the streaming services you have at home,” Östlund said ahead of the film's premiere.

as Gray made clear during his Cannes press conference. “How’d we get here?” he said.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterA group of women protestors staged a dramatic scene at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, releasing plumes of smoke from handheld devices and displaying a long banner for the global press.At the premiere of “Holy Spider,” director Ali Abbasi’s female-centered thriller, roughly 12 women in formalwear gathered on the famed stairs of the festival’s Grand Palais with raised fists — filling the space with thick black smoke and holding a long scroll of women’s names.Security seemed unfazed by the event, allowing the protestors to be filmed and photographed. One insider close to the production said the protest was not a coordinated stunt to promote the film, about a journalist who travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer murdering sex workers.

Cannes has had another protest on the red-carpet, a couple of days after a naked woman demonstrated against violence towards women in Ukraine.

CANNES – We are living in yet another era of European history where old battles over the borders of nation-states are being disputed. Russia has invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine after already annexing the province of Crimea less than a decade ago.

Christopher Vourlias Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s latest documentary, “The Natural History of Destruction,” bows May 23 in the Cannes Premiere section of the Cannes Film Festival. The director returns to the Croisette one year after his last feature, “Babi Yar.

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.

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.

Christopher Vourlias In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, organizers of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival quickly shifted gears to offer whatever support they could.

EXCLUSIVE: As Roman Abramovich-backed Tchaikovsky’s Wife unspools this week at the Cannes Film Festival, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance has clarified its position regarding movies backed by sanctioned oligarchs.

Marta Balaga Butterfly Vision (completed) Director: Maksym Nakonechnyi Producers: Darya Bassel, Yelizaveta Smith Production: Tabor Productions, 4 Film, Masterfilm, Sisyfos Sales: Wild Bunch Lilia, held as a prisoner of war for months, finally returns home. But she is struggling to resume her life as a soldier and wife, while discovering she is pregnant.Chrysanthemum Day Director: Simon Mozgovyi Producers: Alex Chepiga, Artem Koliubaiev Production: Mainstream Pictures Young doctor encounters an old woman, known as a healer, who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion.

Marta Balaga Ukrainian industry players gathered in Cannes are determined to show they can provide a variety of new content, as well as stories that look beyond the current Russian invasion.“I have been repeating this since 2014 — it’s a trap to be only associated with war,” says producer Julia Sinkevych, now behind Marysia Nikitiuk’s upcoming feature “Lucky Girl.”Presented at the Cannes Market as part of the Ukrainian Features Preview, it shows a successful TV star who has everything, until she is diagnosed with cancer.As noted by Ukrainian Institute’s Natalie Movshovych, several projects focus on the 1990s, including “When We Were 15” — awarded at Meeting Point Vilnius in April — “Do You Love Me?” by Tonia Noyabriova, Philip Sotnychenko’s “Lapalissade” and “Rock. Paper.