AFP/Cannes
 |
|
(from left) US actor Adrien Brody, French actress Lea Seydoux, US actor Owen Wilson, US director Woody Allen, Canadian actress Rachel McAdams and British actor Michael Sheen pose on the red carpet before the opening ceremony and the screening of ‘Midnight in Paris’ presented out-of-competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival yesterday |
Woody Allen’s latest romantic comedy ‘Midnight in Paris’ was opening the 11-day event at a black-tie screening at sundown that already has tongues wagging.
Billed by organisers as “a love letter” to the French capital, it stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates and Marion Cotillard - and French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, cast in a bit part as a museum curator.
The supermodel-turned-singer has revealed that she is skipping the gala screening for “personal and professional reasons” - stirring rumours that she is pregnant with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s child.
“She’s a singer, she plays guitar and she has a theatrical feel,” Allen told reporters. “And so she came in and did her part very gracefully.”
Crowds swelled in the sunshine outside the Palais des Festivals for a preview screening of ‘Midnight in Paris’, some clutching handmade signs asking if anyone might kindly slip them an invitation into the opening gala soiree.
Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, whose classics include ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and ‘The Last Emperor’, meanwhile, prepared to collect an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work. Organisers say the laurel will, from this year, be presented annually to a deserving cinema legend.
Shortly before the opening ceremony, wheelchair-bound Bertolucci, 71, apologised for not having “anything fresh” to present at Cannes, but looked forward to getting his honour from Robert De Niro, this year’s jury president.
A rich galaxy of film stars is converging on Cannes, with the likes of Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz - appearing in the 3-D adventure caper ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ - expected on the red carpet.
Power couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were also due in town, along with pop star Lady Gaga - not for a movie, but to promote her new album ‘Born This Way’ on a French television chat show.
On the serious side of the festival, 20 pictures, including fresh work from Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, Denmark’s Lars Von Trier and Belgium’s Dardenne brothers, are up for the highly coveted Palme d’Or.
De Niro, who starred in past Palme d’Or winners ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The Mission’, is steering the jury that includes Hollywood stars Uma Thurman and Jude Law, Hong Kong director Johnny To and film producer Shi Nansun, and French director Olivier Assayas.
“We’ll be sitting there, watching movies, then we’ll figure it out,” he said when asked how the jury would fulfil its mission. “For me, there’s no prescribed way. We go to the movies, then talk about them, discuss them.”
Seven hundred police officers have been detailed to the festival, where the killing of Osama bin Laden has ramped up security concerns.
But security around Cannes - which triples in size during the festival - appeared casual yesterday, both at the Festival des Palais and at nearby luxury hotels, villas, yachts and other party venues.
In a salute to change in the Middle East, the festival is honouring Egypt as its first “guest country,” and presenting films by convicted Iranian directors Jafar Panahi and Mohamed Rasoulof, made in “semi-clandestine conditions”.
Causing a stir among documentaries is ‘Unlawful Killing’, an account of the inquest into the August 1997 death of Princess Diana that reportedly includes a gruesome black-and-white close-up of her dying.