The Cannes Film Festival closed on Saturday with its top Palme d'Or award going to South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's raucous social satire 'Parasite', while the second-place award went to French-Senegalese director Mati Diop's feature-film debut, 'Atlantics', a regard on the migrant crisis, and the third-placed jury prize shared by French director Ladj Ly's feature-film debut 'Les Miserables' about grim life and police violence in a poor Paris suburb, together with Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho's 'Bacurau' about a rural Brazilian community defending itself from a hard-to-comprehend invasion in President Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil.
All of all of the Cannes Film Festival's female jury members, including its leader Cate Blanchett, along with many women actors, directors and producers held a protest on the red-carpeted entrance to the festival's Palis des festivals on Saturday to call for gender parity in the cinema industry, underling that Cannes had since its beginnings awarded 71 male directors with the coveted Golden Palm prize, but has given the honour to just two female directors.
Film production streaming giant Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, said his company was pulling out of next month's Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most prestigious annual filmmakers venue, because they will not be treated equally due to a French law that stipulates films cannot be released on home entertainment platforms until 36 months after their release in cinemas.
The 70th Cannes film festival, presided by Pedro Almodovar, drew to a close on Sunday, with top prize going to Swedish director Ruben Ostlund's The Square, while the Grand Prix went to Robin Campillo's 120 Beats per Minute, and Sofia Coppola was awarded best director prize for her film The Beguiled.
Cannes Film Festival Director Thierry Frémaux joined staff on the red carpet of one of the world's most high-profile cinema festivals to say that the victims of the Manchester Arena attack were 'doing exactly what we are doing here at Cannes ... being together, rejoicing in the freedom to love and sharing their passion'.
Security was tight and omnipresent on the Cannes red carpet as the 70th edition of the film festival opened on Wednesday night with multiple ticket checks and a metal detector scan before guests were allowed near the red carpet, as the near two-week prestigious cinema festival opened with Arnaud Desplechin's film Ismael's Ghosts.
French film director Jacques Audiard has met with widespread acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his latest film, Rust and Bone ( De rouille et d'os), an adaptation of Canadian author Craig Davidson’s collection of short stories by the same name. As the film appears poised for a huge box-office success, Mediapart’s Christine Marcandier interviews Davidson about how the project with Audiard began (in a meeting when he spilled water over the celebrated director’s “lovely” felt hat), what he thinks of the film, and his approach to writing - which he admits has seen him go “a little crazy” in living out the pains of his characters.
