Michel Fessler, Writer of Cannes Title ‘Little Nicholas,’ Boards Ravi K. Chandran’s India-France Film ‘Tamara’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Ted Sarandos To Be Named Entertainment Person Of The Year At Cannes Lions

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades has closed a raft of deals on “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be,” an animated feature which world premiered at Cannes in the Special Screenings section and will go on to compete at Annecy festival. Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be” is based on author René Goscinny and New Yorker cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé’s popular children books from the 1960’s which have been translated into than 30 languages.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIn the second big prize announcement by a Directors’ Fortnight partner, “The Mountain” (“La Montagne”), from emerging French auteur Thomas Salvador, has won the SACD Prize, awarded by France’s Writers’ Guild for the best French-language movie in the section.The second feature of the French actor-director after 2017’s promising “Vincent,” selected for San Sebastian’s prestige New Directors section, ”The Mountain” is sold internationally by Le Pacte which will also handle distribution in France.From a screenplay written by Salvador and Naila Guiguet, which was selected for Critics’ Weeks’ Next Steps 2020, “The Mountain” turns on Pierre, 40, played by Salvador, who makes a sales pitch for his company’s robotic arm in Chamonix, the capital of the French Alps. When his colleagues return to Paris, he stays on, pitching a tent just below the Aiguille du Midi cable car station, a spectacular pinnacle at 12,600 feet, in the lap of Mont Blanc.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentStarring Léa Seydoux,  Mia Hansen-Løve’s “One Fine Morning” won this year’s Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for best European film at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.Announced Thursday by Europa Cinemas, ahead of the closing ceremony this evening, the prize is one of two at Directors Fortnight, and awarded by one of the sidebar’s partners given the section is non-competitive.A second partner plaudit, the SACD Prize, handed out by France’s Writers’ Guild,  will be announced later today at an awards ceremony.“One Fine Morning” was always a frontrunner for a prize at Directors’ Fortnight, though never a shoo-in. The award comes just three days after Sony Pictures Classics announced it had acquired North American, Latin American and Middle East rights to the film.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAndres Ramirez Pulido’s “La Jauria” won the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second features. The Colombian film also won the SACD prize.

Viola Davis is being honored!

Alicia Vikander stuns on the red carpet in a metallic cooper dress at the premiere of Irma Vep during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival held at Palais des Festivals on Sunday (May 22) in Cannes, France.

Cannes film festival at Palais des Festival. Swedish native Alicia, 33, pulled out all the stops as she cut a glamorous figure in a unique Louis Vuitton ensemble.  Alicia wowed in the gladiator inspired metallic co-ord which featured a floor length skirt and cross front halter neck top from the French luxury fashion house.

Marion Cotillard shows off her long legs on the red carpet for the premiere of her new film, Brother and Sister, during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on Friday (May 20) in Cannes, France.

Manori Ravindran International EditorHBO Documentary Films has bought worldwide television rights for Cannes Special Screenings title “All That Breathes.”The film is the only Sundance movie to screen as part of Cannes’ Official Selection this year — a feat all the more impressive given Cannes is not known for its documentary programming. In Park City, the film picked up the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.Directed by Shaunak Sen (“Cities of Sleep”), “All That Breathes” follows two brothers who run a bird hospital dedicated to rescuing injured black kites, which are a staple in the skies of New Delhi, India.In one of the world’s most populated cities, where cows, rats, monkeys, frogs and hogs jostle cheek-by-jowl with people, the “kite brothers” care for thousands of these creatures, which fall daily from New Delhi’s smog-choked skies.

exercice de style as the French would put it, “EO” has plenty on its mind and nothing much to say, idling through a series of vignettes than more often not end with a punch-line of a forbidden kiss or a sudden act of violence, capturing them all with a flashy and urgent style of a music video or Super Bowl car commercial. One need not look far to see in this tale of a lonely beast of burden traipsing across the countryside a condemnation of modern Polish society, especially in sequences when the titular donkey first witnesses and then succumbs to a bout of skinhead hooligan violence, or when it clops across a forest bed we soon learn was once a Jewish burial site. At the same time, Skolimowski – who shot this project over a two-year period – seems more interested in simply making his camera swoop and soar and generally perform its series of stupid pet tricks. In many ways, this rather silly (if quite entertaining) trifle makes for a fitting entry for Cannes’ 75th edition. Skolimowski approaches the material with the hunger and zeal of a young film student, lifting a framework from Robert Bresson and filtering through references to recent festival provocateurs like Lars von Trier, Refn, and Michael Haneke.

Lise Pedersen “The Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be” by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon is having its world premiere at a Special Screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20.Several years in the making, the film brings together the world-famous French schoolboy and his creators, author René Goscinny and cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, as it goes back and forth between their world and his imaginary world.Translated into more than 30 languages, the Little Nicholas short stories have been adapted to fiction but never to animation until now. For the creative team, it was essential to stay true both to Goscinny’s short stories and to Sempé’s drawings.“The main challenge was to create the Little Nicholas’ world in animation and, at the same time, remain faithful to Sempé’s style – his drawings are very small, they’re made in ink, which gives them a sort of awkward but very lively energy, full of emotion.

Holly Jones Encapsulating humanity’s weighty history and paths toward healing, director Véra Belmont (“Red Kiss”) takes a leap from live-action cinema to animated feature with her latest project, “My Father’s Secrets,” a Holocaust story that tackles generational familial trauma and redemption.Based on the graphic novel “Second Generation” by Israeli illustrator Michel Kichka, the film is set for its market premiere at the Cannes Marché du Film, with the incentive for international markets of Elliott Gould leading the English voice cast.“My Father’s Secrets,” set in Belgium, introduces two young brothers, Michel and Charly, who struggle with their father Henri’s reclusive nature surrounding his time at Auschwitz. Their imaginations get the better of them as their father retreats inward on a personal journey to recoup his life after surviving the tragedies of internment.

Ever since Michel Hazanavicius’ Oscar-winning tribute to silent cinema “The Artist,” the French filmmaker has continued to focus his work on the process of filmmaking itself, for better and, mostly, for worse. After “Redoutable,” centered on the relationship between Jean-Luc Godard and Anne Wiazemsky during the filming of “La Chinoise,” he again explored la magie du cinéma in “The Lost Prince,” where Omar Sy (the biggest star on French Netflix and, maybe, in French cinema tout court) saw the rich fantasy film-set world he had created for his daughter begin to crumble as she started to outgrow his fairytales.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNawazuddin Siddiqui, the Emmy-nominated Indian actor, is to take the lead role in U.S. indie film “Laxman Lopez.” The film is a Christmas-themed movie to be directed by Mexico’s Roberto Girault, director of local hits including 2017’s “La Leyenda Del Diamante,” 2015’s “Los Arboles Mueren de Pie” and “El Estudiante” from 2009. The project is led by New York-based Imagine Infinite Productions.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorA visit from the dead? How chic.The Cannes Film Festival sprung back into action on Tuesday night, as this year’s opening night movie, “Final Cut (Coupez!)” received a 5-minute standing ovation. The gory zombie line, which straddled a tone somewhere between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Call My Agent,” kicked off a festival where few patrons were wearing masks in these COVID times.To commemorate the 75th edition of Cannes, festival director Thierry Fremaux selected a French movie — not to mention a French jury president, “Titane” actor Vincent Lindon — to keep things local at the start of the celebration of movies in the French Riviera.

Originally planned to open the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year before the worsening Covid situation forced the festival to again go virtual, Oscar-winning writer-director Michel Hazanavicius made the right decision in insisting his comedy Final Cut (Coupez!), about the making of a low-budget bad zombie movie, should be presented with a full house in a theatre, thankfully not to be watched on your computer at a prestigious film festival. In holding out for the real thing he scored big as it was chosen as the opening-night out-of-competition film of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Final Cut,” directed by Michel Hazanavicius on opening night. This year’s Cannes is also the biggest film event to be hosted since the start of the pandemic, bringing together the festival and market crowds.

The debut of a Scottish director is one of seven films to be selected for Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival in a spectacular moment for Scottish cinema.

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.