What to anticipate from the Cannes Movie Competition, with controversies from Depp and award-winning Brazilians

Leonardo Sanchez
Cannes – France

When the purple carpet rolls out alongside the Croisette, the avenue that separates the blue seashores from the designer retailers and luxurious resorts within the metropolis of Cannes, beginning this Tuesday (sixteenth), many Brazilians will probably be crossed by a sense of déjà vu.

This 76th Cannes Movie Competition will, in any case, be very paying homage to the 2019 version, when Brazil took the French Riviera by storm and left the occasion with the jury prizes, for “Bacurau”, by Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho, and from the Un Sure Regard exhibition, for “Invisible Life”, by Karim Aïnouz.

The final two filmmakers are actually returning to the competition and, by ironic coincidence, in the identical yr that Carol Duarte, star of “A Vida Invisível”, may even parade alongside the Croisette, alongside the forged of “La Chimera”, by the Italian Alice Rohrwacher .

Mendonça Filho takes the documentary “Retratos Fantasmas” to the particular periods, whereas Aïnouz seems within the official number of function movies, attempting to win the Palme d’Or with “Firebrand”, a British challenge in regards to the court docket of Henry VIII, removed from all the pieces that the cearense directed. till right here.

“It was such a lovely competition 2019,” says Aïnouz. “Now I am again with a thriller, a style I’ve by no means labored with. All the things will probably be very totally different this time, however ultimately what’s at all times at stake is cinema”, he continues, nonetheless praising Carol Duarte, who he hopes to be near all through the occasion.

Not paired with “Firebrand” are one other 20 longs, with highlights for brand spanking new works by Wes Anderson, “Asteroid Metropolis”; Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Curiosity”; Hirokazu Kore-eda, “Monster”; Nanni Moretti, “The Solar of Hope”; Marco Bellocchio, “Quick”; Todd Haynes, “Could December”; Ken Loach, “The Outdated Oak”; Wim Wenders, “Excellent Days,” and Catherine Corsini, “The Return.”

After the Brazilian get together within the 2019 version, Cannes entered the horror style when the Covid-19 pandemic canceled not solely one in all its editions, but in addition these of many different festivals. It returned in 2021 with restrictions that prevented many from reaching the Riviera and eventually surrendered to the glamorous local weather of yesteryear final yr.

But when in 2022 some have been nonetheless sporting masks, handshakes have been scarce and a concern of the Covid super-spreader hovering over the occasion, now the local weather is one in all complete normality.

One thing that additionally adjustments radically in comparison with final yr is exactly the Brazilian presence. Within the final version, the nation solely had house for a remastered session of “Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol”.

Now, it’s with a powerful entourage that Brazil seems in each nook of this system. Along with the already talked about “La Chimera” and “Firebrand”, in the primary exhibition, there may be one more international challenge with a Brazilian amongst its primary faces – “Hypnotic”, by which Alice Braga acts with Ben Affleck.

“Retratos Fantasmas”, by Mendonça Filho, was among the many particular periods, which don’t compete, and attested to the status of the Pernambucan among the many very unique circles of Cannes. In 2021, he was additionally a part of the jury that awarded the Palme d’Or to “Titane”.

Aïnouz joins within the celebration. “This return from Brazil is unimaginable, a rustic that was in intensive take care of 4 years with a monster as president. I’m pleased to see sunny days once more, and Cannes is a sunny competition”, he says, regardless of the clouds which have coated the Riviera within the days main as much as the occasion.

Along with them, “A Flor do Buriti”, by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora, Portuguese and Brazilian, additionally already awarded at Cannes, with the 2018 Um Certo Olhar jury trophy, for “Chuva É Cantoria na Aldeia dos Mortos”, seems in the identical part, devoted to filmmakers who nonetheless have few titles below their belt.

Married, the duo guarantees to take a delegation of indigenous individuals to France, praising the work they do with the Krahô of Tocantins.

“We did not have excessive expectations, as a result of we thought that the aura of novelty that ‘Chuva’ introduced had handed, because it was spoken in an indigenous language and was a couple of Brazil that was then unknown to international eyes. After which we acquired this information with nice pleasure, as a result of it’s a propitious second, with the eyes of the world turned to the Brazilian indigenous peoples”, says Messora.

Different nationwide function movies are “Levante”, by Lillah Halla, which is a part of the Critics’ Week, and “Nelson Pereira dos Santos – Vida de Cinema”, by Aida Marques and Ivelise Ferreira, proven on the non-competitive Cannes Classics present, which reveres the previous from the cinema. Rounding off the Brazilian crew are the quick movies “Solos”, by Pedro Vargas, and “Camaleoa”, by Eduardo Tosta.

That is to not say that this yr’s choice, a minimum of the primary one, has been much less Eurocentric than regular. All rivals are from the outdated continent or america, apart from the Japanese “Monster”. There are different copies with a international soul, however with French financing.

It’s, nevertheless, the record-breaking version when it comes to feminine administrators within the competitors’s options, with seven. Along with Rohrwacher and Corsini, there are additionally Jessica Hausner, Kaouther Ben Hania, Justine Triet, Catherine Breillat and Ramata-Toulaye Sy.

Among the many gimmicks that may attempt to compete with the eye given to “High Gun: Maverick” and its fighters that painted the sky purple, white and blue final yr are “Indiana Jones and the Relic of Future”, the fifth movie within the franchise, “Killers of the Flower Moon”, Scorsese’s new partnership with De Niro and DiCaprio, “Elementos”, from Pixar, and “Unusual Manner of Life”, Almodóvar’s homosexual western.

And if the highlight is drawn to controversy, then the Depp household could have no hassle standing out. Johnny Depp, after his lengthy and exhausting lawsuit in opposition to ex-wife Amber Heard, stars within the opening movie “Jeanne Du Barry”. His daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, is on the sequence “The Idol”, which collected gossip together with her plot that dissects the “décadence avec élégance” of present enterprise from which the Competition de Cannes, in fact, doesn’t escape.

“Our presence is an indication that Brazil is coming again with all the pieces on many fronts, particularly in tradition. However it’s regular. Irregular is when we’re not represented. We’re a part of the world, so I hope that this Brazilian illustration will probably be increasingly pure, not one thing to name consideration.”