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71th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

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Watching red carpet, soon the top prizes of Cannes 2018. Saturday May 19th Morning Update :  Un Certain Regard winners,  Queer Palm winners and more ... Today AFP gives us the most interesting news as this year will be the first time in 71 years of the festival where those Cannes main awards that used to receive diplomas will receive a mini-palmes d'or! Main Competition Palme d'Or: 万引き家族 Manbiki Kazoku (Shoplifters), Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman , Spike Lee, USA Jury Award : كفرناحوم Capharnaüm (Capernaum), Nadine Labaki, Lebanon and France Palme d'Or Special : Le Livre d'image (The Image Book), Jean-Luc Godard,  France Best Director : Pawel Pawlikowski for Zimna wojna (Cold War), Poland, France and UK Best Screenplay : (tie) Alice Rohrwacher for Lazzaro Felice (My Bitter Land), Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany Nader Saelvar for Three Faces , Jafar Panahi, Iran Best Actress : Samal Yeslyamova in Айка Ayka (My Little...

57th Semaine de la Critique Award Winners

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Yesterday, the Cannes parallel section had their award ceremony with top award going to a Franco-Brazilian-Portuguese comedy drama. Check winners below in GREEN and at official press release here . Most interesting is the availability of 500 FREE tickets to watch the 2018 short films selection via Festival Scope.   Starting today, May 17th and until May 27th IF you hurry, will be able to watch the shorts; but act fast as there are only 500 tickets and yes, they're sold out quite quickly.  Festival Scope site is here . ---///--- 4/19/18 A few days back organizers released the video with Charles Tesson, Semaine de la Critique Artistic Director and Charlotte Lipinska, journalist and film critic announcing the selection for the 2018 edition of the Critics' Week and there is no surprise when we find that -as always- selection is eclectic (and strange) but having high-profile actors in the selection, is quite unusual and yes, surprising. Paul Dano's directing debut film has J...

26th L'ACID Selection

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The ACID program at the Cannes International Film Festival was created in 1993. Films are chosen by fifteen or so filmmakers, members of the association. It screens nine feature films, fiction and documentary, chosen among hundreds of works from all around the world. ACID filmmakers follow their love for a film and wish to give visibility to directors whose work is scarcely distributed, in order to facilitate a theatrical release. The screenings, open to professionals and also to the public are all followed by Q&As with the films' crews and ACID filmmakers who supported the films. The films shown in Cannes are then accompanied by ACID and its filmmakers in the various stages of the theatrical release (search for distributors / promotion / programming / organization of the Q&A's / audience research). ACID is a film directors association that has been promoting the distribution of independent cinema in movie theatres since 1992. The founding principle: the support broug...

71st Festival de Cannes Official Selection - Update 1

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As announced during the press conference of April 12th, today, April 19, organizers announced the films added to the composition of the Official Selection 2018. There is some relief to my not positive feeling that this year there is an incredibly great official competition jury and there are not many great films for them to select winners from.  But now things can change a bit as, ladies and gentlemen, please notice that Nuri Bilge Ceylan is as of now in the competition to win the Palme d'or and perhaps has become the top contender along Jia Zhangke.  Well, at least their films have become must-be-seen for me no matter whatever happens in Cannes. In the competition two more films by Yann Gonzalez and Sergey Dvortsevoy (remember Tulpan?) to make a total of twenty-one (21) films in the competition.  Still the list of great directors with films ready -and not in Cannes- is long, very-long, longer than the 21 films selected to be in competition.  To be positive, seems no...

#Cannes2018 Press Conference

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Links to LIVE broadcast In English In French

2018 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz

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As happens every single year, Cannes buzz starts during Berlinale and gets louder when Berlinale ends.  Even do been following the buzz since then this year haven't post anything as some of you guessed right, my life has changed and now it's not easy to keep on writing for you, loyal readers.  But no matter how many changes have happened or will occur, Cannes is Cannes for me and have to (or at least will try to) write my regular posts about the buzz, my wish list and all the other stuff done in the previous years. No, this is not my Wish List but the usual compilation of possible films that could make it to Cannes which usually do in February but well, I'm doing it a month later and by now most industry publications have done their own lists, so it's not a novelty but will be a lot easier to make it, lol. Before going deep into the list let me remind you of some important news, the 71st edition of the Festival of Cannes will run from May 8 to 19, Cate Blanchett is the ...

43rd César Awards Winners

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Last night the French Academy had their award ceremony and no, was not able to watch it live but as expected the big winner of the night was BPM as collected 6 awards but was followed very closely by See You Up There with 5. What I really regret is not watching live the surprise appearance by Marion Cotillard to present along with Pedro Almodovar the Honorary César to Penelope Cruz, sigh.  Also, there are not many opportunities to see Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert and Marion Cotillard in one and the same event!!! But I'm watching videos and as soon as full awards ceremony video becomes available will include it in post. Was not aware there was an event president this year -after what happened last year; but yes, there was a presented as such by Many Payet, Vanessa Paradis who opened the ceremony and gave remarkable homage to Jeanne Moreau.  Video is at post bottom.  Trying to see homages for Mireille Darc and Johnny Hallyday, but haven't been able to find clips, so w...