Kirill Serebrennikov Defends His Cannes Premiere as Ukrainian Industry Renews Calls for Russian Boycott

A24 has made another acquisition out of Cannes, acquiring the North American rights to “Close,” the next film from Lukas Dhont, which is set to debut tonight in the main competition at Cannes. Dhont is the director of 2018’s “Girl,” which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and the film stars Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele, and Émilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker, Kevin Janssens, Marc Weiss, Igor Van Dessel, and Léon Bataille.“Close” is described as a film about friendship and responsibility and follows two 13-year-old boys, Léo and Rémi, whose friendship suddenly gets disrupted.

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.

The cast of Elvis has arrived for the premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival!

Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, and Olivia DeJonge headlined the star-studded premiere for the upcoming Elvis Presley biopic at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. The group was also joined by the singer’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley. On the red carpet, Luhrmann showed off a flashy Elvis belt buckle to an impressed Butler. The group was also peppered with a long list of other stars showing their support, including Shakira, Sharon Stone, Ricky Martin, Kylie Minogue, Maye Musk, Jwan Yosef, Winnie Harlow, Shanina Shaik, Elsa Hosk, Candice Swanepoel, Stella Maxwell, Adriana Lima, and Andre Lemmers. Team #Elvis has entered the building.

review of the film for TheWrap, Ben Croll wrote that Abbasi with “Holy Spider” turns the murder thriller “upside down, telling a story where the killer’s identify is never in doubt and his intentions are always crystal clear, and where the greatest source of tension comes from wondering whether anyone in power will lift a finger to stop him.”Abbasi wrote “Holy Spider” with Afshin Kamran Bahrami. Sol Bondy and Jacob Jarek produced the film.

Naomi Campbell looks amazing on the red carpet at the premiere of Decision To Leave during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on Monday (May 23) in Cannes, France.

Kristen Stewart just gave us another great red carpet moment!

Thania Garcia Ahead of its Monday evening premiere at the Cannes Film Festival’s Midnight Screenings section, the first trailer for filmmaker Brett Morgen’s “Moonage Daydream” — a feature-length film dissecting David Bowie’s creative, musical and spiritual journey — has been released.Featuring never-before-seen footage, performances, and music, the documentary is piloted by Bowie’s own narration. It is the first film project officially sanctioned by Bowie’s estate.

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.

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.

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.

Anne Hathaway is looking incredible on the Cannes red carpet!

K.J. Yossman When “War Pony” debuts in Cannes on May 21, it will represent the culmination of a project almost a decade in the making.

Tchaikovsky’s Wife filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, a Russian dissident was grilled, by the global press at Cannes over the pic being bankrolled by oligarch financing in particular Roman Abramovich, as well as the notion of the world’s boycott against Russia.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaNeon has purchased North American distribution rights to Mark Jenkin’s “Enys Men,” ahead of the horror film’s premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.The film, which sounds very shades of “The Wicker Man,” stars Mary Woodvine and Edward Rowe. Jenkin wore a lot of hats on this one.

Returning to Cannes a year after his feverish drama “Petrov’s Flu” hit the Croisette, Kirill Serebrennikov can finally attend the festival in person after recently being free from years of house arrest. Debuting in competition, his latest offering, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” is a slow-burn historical drama that never manages to escape from being a bore despite its seemingly intriguing premise.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticBack when art house movies played full-time in art houses, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” at least on paper, might have seemed a film of middlebrow commercial hooks — the sort of movie that would have slipped into the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York and played there comfortably for a month or so. The first hook, of course, is Tchaikovsky himself, the Russian composer who created works of such timeless and popular beauty that he is always in danger, in an odd way, of being underrated, like the Spielberg of longhairs.

CANNES, France -- The last two times the Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov had films playing at the Cannes Film Festival, he couldn't attend. He was under a travel ban in Russia as part of a conviction for fraud in what was widely protested as unwarranted repression of the arts in Russia.