Cannes Festival Divided Over Dealmaking in Russia, Some Reluctant to Give Up ‘Financially Lucrative’ Market

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, June 9 to 18, has unveiled the titles in contention for awards in its four main feature-length sections: main competition, Asian New Talent, Animation film and documentary. These are eligible for the festival’s prestigious Golden Goblet Awards, winners of which will be announced at the Shanghai Grand Theater on the evening of June 17. While SIFF remains the only mainland China festival to be accredited as a so-called A-list event by the International Federation of Film Producers (FIAPF), its selections are largely separate and distinct from those at other major international festivals.

Roger Waters is responding after becoming mired in controversy after the Berlin stop on his This Is Not A Drill tour.

Nanni Moretti returns to the film-within-a-film format with a fitfully funny new comedy that, this time, offers two films-within-a-film (plus a surreal dream sequence). It is, frankly, a relief after 2021’s terrible, soapy melodrama Three Floors, and, at a crisp 96 minutes, so much easier to swallow. In some ways a companion piece to 2015’s Mia Madre, it finds the director putting all his neuroses back on show, pontificating on everything from movie violence to streaming platforms and why wearing slippers onscreen is a fashion no-no that can only be pulled off by Aretha Franklin in The Blues Brothers.

Irina Shayk has been putting her figure on display during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival season. Shayk's latest look was a Gucci lingerie set paired with a sheer slip dress.The model paired the risqué look with a black blazer, a neck full of jewels and knee-high stockings. Shayk was accompanied by Italian fashion designer Riccardo Tisci to British Vogue's party on Monday night celebrating the prestigious movie festival.

Why was Bill Gates so friendly with Jeffrey Epstein when the convicted pedo made his wife’s skin crawl? We may finally have an answer… According to a bombshell new report, Epstein blackmailed the Microsoft founder — using an alleged affair with a much younger Russian woman as ammunition!

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent A Ukrainian influencer was pulled off the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, after she covered herself in fake blood on the steps up to the Palais, staging a protest in support of Ukraine. This year, the city of Cannes banned protests along the Croisette and its surroundings during the festival. Ilona Chernobai — a Ukrainian fitness trainer with one million followers on Instagram — walked the red carpet at Cannes in a blue and yellow dress, symbolizing the Ukraine flag. As she got to the stairs, she pulled bags of fake blood from underneath her dress and poured them over herself. Security immediately grabbed her and escorted her off the carpet.

Chernobai walked for the premiere of Just Philippot's Acide wearing a blue and yellow gown—the colors of the Ukraine flag—without incident, seemingly invited to the event. But when she reached the steps leading up to the screening, she removed two packets of fake blood from her cleavage and broke them over her head as an apparent protest against her country's invasion by Russia.

Her rules! Irina Shayk broke red carpet tradition at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 22. 

The Cannes Film Festival red carpet is usually accustomed to protests and demonstrations. Last year there were multiple.

Prince Andrew's paedophile acquaintance Jeffrey Epstein reportedly threatened fellow billionaire Bill Gates over an affair the Microsoft tycoon allegedly had with a young woman.

Cannes on Saturday, practically back-to-back, and critics were whipped to a frenzy with praise for them. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is easily one of the most anticipated movies of 2023, and with the first trailer having dropped on Thursday, it’s no surprise that the line to get into the theater for the Cannes screening was immense, according to social media.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based genre specialist Reel Suspects has acquired world sales for Victor Ginzburg’s Russia-set, sci-fi horror film Empire V ahead of its world premiere in Montreal’s Fantasia Fest in July.

Christopher Vourlias With Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz-set Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” competing for the Palme d’Or and a host of Polish producers bringing buzzy upcoming projects to the Marché du Film, the Polish industry should again have Cannes talking. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights: The Zone of Interest(Competition)Director: Jonathan GlazerProducers: James Wilson, Ewa Puszczyńska (JW Films, Extreme Emotions)Sales: A24The veteran British filmmaker’s first film in nearly a decade, which will compete for the Palme d’Or, is a Holocaust drama loosely based on the novel by Martin Amis that’s sure to be among the festival’s most talked-about films.

Welcome, Insiders. Cannes is now well under way while the picket lines remain busy in LA. Jesse Whittock here in London. I’ve rounded up all the big and important news from film and TV, so sit back and enjoy the read. Subscribe here.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has snapped up U.S., Canada and key international for Studiocanal and Heyday Films’ threequel Paddington in Peru.

Ukraine war and the momentous burst of rebellion against the Iranian regime prompted by the death of Mahsa Amini are reverberating profoundly at the Cannes Film Festival. At the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday night, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve paid tribute to the war’s victims by reciting a poem from Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka, solemnly declaring: “I no longer have either happiness or freedom, only one hope remains to me: to return one day to my beautiful Ukraine.” One year ago, Cannes got off to an emotional start with remarks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Christopher Vourlias A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of Oscar-nominated film producer Alexander Rodnyansky and theater director Ivan Vyrypaev, accusing the two of “spreading false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, both men — who each reside outside Russia — will be placed in custody once they are either detained by Russian authorities or extradited from abroad. A source close to Rodnyansky said the producer is currently in Cannes, but he could not immediately be reached for comment. Rodnyansky currently splits his time between Ukraine, Europe and L.A., where his production shingle AR Content is based. The Kyiv-born producer, who spent nearly three decades living and working in Russia, fled the country just days after its invasion of Ukraine, after receiving a tip that his outspoken criticism of the war had landed him in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

EXCLUSIVE: When millions of Ukrainians fled to the Polish border after the Russian invasion last year, Maciek Hamela, whose film In the Rearview is debuting in the Cannes market this week, was one of a number of volunteers who drove to help assist multiple generations of Ukrainian civilians in fleeing the life-threatening conflict. 

Johnny Depp was seen getting visibly emotional as his new film Jeanne du Barry received a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday (16 May). The French-language film directed by Maïwenn was controversially chosen to open the festival this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Actor Esai Morales is in negotiations to star in the action thriller Shadow, which XYZ Films has boarded and will introduce to buyers this week in Cannes.