Cannes Film Market Adds to Ukraine in Focus Program – Global Bulletin

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.

Here are some of the key talking points from the Cannes Film Festival and market at half-way.

Rolling applause, and lots of it, greeted Ruben Östlund and the cast of Triangle Of Sadness as they entered the Cannes press conference this morning.

Christopher Vourlias Russia may have been cut off from much of the international film community, but here at Cannes, members of the country’s media business are quietly trying to line up deals.Nearly three months into the war in Ukraine, the leadership of the film festival has spent its opening week fielding questions about its stance on Russia. Festival chief Thierry Frémaux, for instance, was grilled over the inclusion of competition title “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” a movie with financial ties to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

Nick Holdsworth European Film Academy president Agnieszka Holland has criticized the Cannes Film Festival for welcoming a Russian movie to the main competition.The Polish-born director – who fled to France in 1981 when Communist authorities imposed martial law – said now was the time to stand up to Russian aggression in Ukraine.That demanded a total ban on Russian cultural products in Europe, she said in Cannes on Saturday.The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker slammed the festival’s inclusion of Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife.”“If it were up to me, I would not include Russian films in the official program of the festival – even if Kirill Serebrennikov is such a talented artist,” the 73 year old filmmaker said. Speaking in Cannes at an industry roundtable on supporting the Ukrainian film industry at a time of war, Holland added: “Unfortunately my bad feelings were confirmed by his words.

As if unleashing all the pent-up narrative impulses tamped down for the hard-bitten minimalism of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Australia’s proudest son George Miller returns to Cannes’ out-of-Competition section with a sumptuous banquet of storytelling in service of storytelling. “Three Thousand Years of Longing” compresses eons of heartbreak, happenstance, and hope into a hotel room tête-à-tête that then re-blooms to the size of the universe, a parable both titanic and intimate in scale as it negotiates one woman’s complacent solitude against the welfare of mythologies dating back to the cradle of civilization.

A woman clad in nothing but body paint and undergarments rushed the Cannes Film Festival red carpet premiere of George Miller’s "Three Thousand Years of Longing" on Friday to deliver a message to the masses. "Stop raping us" the unidentified woman’s torso-written message read in the familiar blue and yellow colors of the Ukraine flag as she stripped down and collapsed to her knees in rage before being apprehended by nearby security personnel.

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.

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.

Z began to be used as a symbol of support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The film is now called “Coupez!” in France.A remake of the 2017 Japanese horror-comedy “One Cut of the Dead,” “Final Cut” is silly and excessive and completely over-the-top, but it also brings out the lightness and deftness of Hazanavicus’ touch with comedy; the director somehow manages to fling body parts and bodily excretions at the audience for almost two hours, and yet you leave feeling as if you’ve seen a feel-good movie.Like the original Japanese film, “Final Cut” takes place in three parts.

After a canceled 2020 edition and a scaled back gathering last year, the Cannes Film Festival kicked off Tuesday with an eye turned to Russia’s war in Ukraine and a video message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

CANNES, France -- After a canceled 2020 edition and a scaled back gathering last year, the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday rolled out the red carpet for what organizers hope will be a f ully resuscitated French Riviera spectacular.The 75th Cannes Film Festival is set to open Tuesday night with the premiere of Michel Hazanavicius' zombie comedy “Final Cut.” Over the next 12 days, 21 films will vie for the festival's prestigious top award, the Palme d'Or, while a handful of high-profile Hollywood titles — including “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Elvis” and “Three Thousand Years of Longing” — will also launch in Cannes.“This year, everyone wanted to come to Cannes,” said Thierry Frémaux, artistic director of the festival, ahead of the opening. “Everyone wanted to meet again.”This year's Cannes will officially begin Tuesday evening with an opening ceremony preceding the premier of “Final Cut," which was renamed from its original title, “Z,” after Ukrainian protesters noted that the letter Z to some symbolizes support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.The war in Ukraine is expected to be a regular presence in Cannes.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefStudiocanal will launch rights sales at Cannes on “Kangaroo,” the first Australia-New Zealand production from the local arm of the French film and TV group Canal Plus. The film is inspired by the real-life story of The Kangaroo Sanctuary founder Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns, who has been saving and raising baby kangaroos in Central Australia since 2005.The narrative is shaped as a heart-warming family comedy about a down-on-his-luck pro surfer who becomes stranded in an Outback town after a car accident.

As the world has been hit by a heavy crisis in which a part of Europe finds itself in a state of war, the Festival de Cannes wishes to extend all its support to the people of Ukraine and all those who are in its territory.However modest as it is, we join our voices with those who oppose this unacceptable situation and denounce the attitude of Russia and its leaders.Our thoughts go out in particular to the Ukrainian artists and film industry professionals, as well as their families whose lives are now in danger. There are those whom we’ve never met, and those whom we’ve come to know and welcomed to Cannes, who came with works that say much about Ukraine’s history and the present.During this winter of 2022, the Festival de Cannes and the Marché du Film have entered their preparation phase.

Naman Ramachandran UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, and TikTok have teamed for a music campaign promoting solidarity with refugees from Ukraine and beyond.