CANNES Festival 2019

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes 2019 Festival opens. Sex, violence, gender parity issues. Netflix. Jury President Iñárritu.


ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ IÑÁRRITU AT CANNES [GUARDIAN]

[Based on opening surveys in the Guardian and Variety]

Tarantino controversies

So Tarantino is coming, with his new film ready for Competition. But will its treatment of the Sharon Tate murders offend taste? QT is in trouble with the #MeToo crowd following rumors of his maltreatment of Uma Thurman while making the "Kill Bill" movies (he apologized; but he has also been quoted as saying that Polanski's 13-year-old sex victim was "down with it"). Another Cannes biggie who'll be present is Ken Loach, with his gig economy drama Sorry We Missed You, likewise Pedro Almodóvar with his film industry memoir Pain and Glory, and the Dardenne brothers with a radicalization story, The Young Ahmed. Terrence Malick's film, A Hidden Life, is about the anti-Nazi Franz Jägerstätter. (Malick has been elusive of late years, and may not even be present at the festival.)

The gender parity issue

The festival directorship itself has no great feminist reputation given how slow it is to bring in more female directors. Despite Thierry Frémaux's signing a gender parity pledge, only 4 out of 23 Competition films are by female directors. Frémaux has said people are asking more of Cannes than of other festivals. In defense of the honoring of the sexist and homophobic Alain Delon, he has declared, "We’re not going to give the Nobel peace prize to Alain Delon. . .He is entitled to express his views. Today it is very difficult to honor somebody because you have a sort of political police that falls on you."

Netrlix and theaters

French distributors were furious at the 2017 Cannes inclusion of Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories, for which Netflix disobeyed the French requirement of holding streaming release for 36 months after theatrical release. Last year Netflix held their prime release ROMA for another festival. There are no Netflix movies in this year's Cannes Festival either (but Martin Scorsese’s mob tale The Irishman and Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers journalist investigation tale The Laundromat simply weren't ready in time anyway).

Jury President Iñárritu speaks out

The Jury president Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (incidentally the first Mexican ever to hold this post at Cannes) has used his position to blast Trump's wall and defend movie theaters against the encroachments of their territory by Netflix. "Cinema was born to be experienced in a communal experience," he said (i.e., not to be watched at home alone). Of Trump's policies, Iñárritu said "As an artist, I can express through my job and with my heart open what I think to be truthful. I think the problem is what is happening is the ignorance. People do not know, it’s very easy to manipulate." He said his selection by the festival is a repudiation of Trump's anti-immigrant policies.


ROHRWACHER, FANNING, N'DIAYE, IÑÁRRITU AT CANNES [GUARDIAN]