‘Banel & Adama’ Review: Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Debut Film Is Striking And Sophisticated – Cannes Film Festival

wearing flip-flops on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival last month, Jennifer Lawrence is setting the record straight about the fashion statement that had the internet abuzz.«Ok, thank you for bringing this up. I would really like to straighten this out,» Lawrence told ET's Nischelle Turner while promoting her new film,  alongside co-star, Andrew Barth Feldman.

Jane Fonda took matters into her own hands over the weekend at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The 85-year-old veteran actress introduced the Palme d'Or Award to French director Justine Triet.Fonda introduced the historic moment, noting that seven female directors were nominated for the prestigious award for the first time and applauding the festival for its progress.She then gave Triet the award for her film.

What has fallen flat at Pixar? This is the innovative animation studio that pushed all before it in the first decade of this millennium, that invented a way of turning the plastic finish of digital animation to its advantage in the towering Toy Story, that was prepared to start a film with a 20-minute scene with no dialogue in Wall-E – and revealed that kids didn’t care – and that would make an adventure film with a hero aged 78 years young in UP!. Kids didn’t care about that either, as it turned out, because Carl Fredricksen was a grumpy-gramps adventurer who also didn’t care what others thought of him. Pixar always had something new up its collective artistic sleeve. And yet here they are, coming out with a film as dull-witted and syrupy as Elemental. 

Variety‘s critics pick the most notable dozen. Distributor: Neon One of seven women filmmakers in competition, Justine Triet has taken a familiar genre (the court- room drama) and turned it on its head. A frustrated writer dies of suspicious causes, leaving behind clues that implicate his wife (Sandra Hüller).

Heidi Klum inadvertently became part of the "free the nipple" movement, when her titillating gown couldn't hold her together. The 49-year-old judge attended the  premiere Wednesday at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival and, while walking the red carpet at Palais des Festivals, all eyes were on Klum, who looked stunning in an aurora yellow Zuhair Murad gown with a hip-high leg slit, crossed neckline and bejeweled sleeves.With her trademark blonde locks flowing, Klum smiled as she raised her arms, and therein lay the problem — when she raised her arms to extend her long cape she suffered a bit of a wardrobe malfunction with a nip slip. Not that she's ever been shy about nudity.Back in February, Klum and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, appeared to have stripped down to their birthday suit to celebrate their four-year wedding anniversary.«Love of my life ❤️,» Klum wrote in her celebratory post.A post shared by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum)The model's dedication to her husband led with a video of her and Kaulitz sharing a kiss in bed.

Still breaking boundaries at the age of 74, French filmmaker Catherine Breillat returns to the Cannes competition with a film that squarely confronts the one taboo that is still ring-fenced from liberal tolerance: sex between adults and children. In the past, she has worked with porn stars, was one of the first to show an erection in an arthouse film and earned herself the moniker “porno auteuriste.” 

Lily-Rose Depp is one proud daughter!ET's Rachel Smith spoke to Lily-Rose virtually from the Cannes Film Festival in the South of France Tuesday, where she said she couldn't be happier for her father, Johnny Depp, following the seven-minute standing ovation he received after the premiere of his new biographical drama, .The film marked the opening of the 76th annual event, and the  star's first leading role since his highly publicized defamation trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard.The French-language film sees Johnny as King Louis XV. Set in the 18th century,  tells the story of Jeanne Bécu (Maïwenn), the daughter of an impoverished seamstress who rose through the Court of Louis XV and became his last official mistress.«I'm super happy for him.

Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost let their love shine in France! On Tuesday, the actress and the star stepped out for the premiere of  at Palais des Festivals during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.The usually private pair had all eyes on them as they made a rare outing together and looked loved-up as they showed minimal PDA. Johansson, 38, was a vision in a pink dress that showed off her massive back tattoo.

Irina Shayk donned a daring look at the Cannes Film Festival. The 37-year-old model stepped out wearing only lingerie and diamonds at a party hosted by  and Chopard.Shayk wowed in a black bra and panty set, which she paired with gloves, a sheer slip, thigh-high stockings and heels.

every year, and 2023 is no different. Among all the diamonds and show-stopping gowns are the beauty looks, both classic and experimental, that are just as much of a spectacle as the outfits.Take Helen Mirren, who switched up her signature silver strands for a very modern .

The very first winner of the Palme d’Or in 1955 was future Best Picture Oscar winner Marty which starred Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair as two lonely middle aged adults beginning a tentative relationship in search of love. Before it was called the Palme d’Or, the top Cannes prize known then as the Grand Prix went in 1946 at the festival’s beginning to David Lean’s Brief Encounter, also the story of two adults who meet by chance and get together.

expecting their third child. The actress made the announcement in style on Sunday during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France.

Jennifer Lawrence made sure to keep things comfortable on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.The 32-year-old Oscar winner attended a special screening of the film and walked the carpet in Cannes, France, while wearing a stunning Christian Dior couture cherry red gown.But when Lawrence lifted her gown to walk down the steps, she revealed that she was rocking some black flip flops underneath the elegant look.Lawrence attended the screening with Sahra Mani, the director of the new documentary she produced,, and fellow producer Justine Ciarrocchi.Earlier on Sunday, Lawrence attended the photocall for while wearing a silver mesh look and heels. is a documentary following Afghan women under the control of the Taliban.

adapted from David Grann’s book of the same name — is set in Oklahoma during the 1920s and depicts the serial murders of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, which was later dubbed the Reign of Terror and led to the formation of the FBI. The Post reached out to Scorsese for comment.“It’s taken its time to come around, but Apple did so great by us, shooting out there … there was lots of grass — I’m a New Yorker,” said the “Goodfellas” director in a post-film speech.

 got a boisterous 9-minute standing ovation after the three-hour epic premiered Saturday at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival.Leonardo DiCaprio, director Martin Scorsese and the rest of the cast soaked up every second of the ovation displayed at Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.  posted a snippet of the thunderous applause, and outlet's co-editor-in-chief, Ramin Setoodeh, reports that the nine-minute standing ovation is «the biggest and loudest» of the film festival so far.According to, Scorsese took the mic after the ovation and addressed the excited crowd.«Thank you to the Osages,» he said. «Everyone connected with the picture.

Senegalese and French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy is only the second Black woman to make it into Competition in Cannes. Her debut feature, Banel & Adama, which had its debut Saturday, follows in the footsteps of Mati Diop’s 2019 Atlantics.

Jessica Kiang The interlinked names of the lovers have an unusual power in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s haunting, halting  “Banel & Adama.” They play over and over as a whispery lullaby on the soundtrack. They cover the sheets of paper on which Banel (Khady Mane) compulsively writes their names, like a schoolgirl practicing cursive on the name of her crush. There’s an innocence to it at the beginning, as though Banel, whose strange mind we mostly occupy, is simply delighting in the sound and shape of their togetherness. But that’s when “Banel & Adama” is a love story, and before it descends, a little too hesitantly but with a subtly seductive power nonetheless, into drought and madness and maybe, cosmic retribution. The sun-and-superstition-soaked tale of an African girl contending with fate and folk tradition has some precedent in Rungano Nyoni’s excellent “I Am Not a Witch.” But here, as the bright imagery begins to hint paradoxically at creeping darkness, we can no longer be sure that witchcraft is not exactly what is at work. 

Christopher Vourlias Debutante director Ramata-Toulaye Sy will join one of world cinema’s most select clubs when she climbs the stairs of the Grand Theatre Lumière on May 20 for the premiere of “Banel & Adama,” which unspools in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It marks just the second time in the French fest’s 76-year history that a Black woman will compete for the Palme d’Or, a glass ceiling that was shattered only four years ago by Sy’s French Senegalese compatriot, Mati Diop (“Atlantics”). While acknowledging the honor, it is a club, Sy admits, about which she has some ambivalence. “I really hope that soon all this will be taken for granted — that we won’t be counting the Black directors, that we won’t be counting women,” the helmer tells Variety. “It means that there’s still something wrong, that there’s still something that hasn’t become completely normal and natural.”

Dua Lipa is all cozied up next to her new beau, Romain Gavras!

Recently split from his co-worker girlfriend, Vincent (Karim Leklou) is having a bad day at the office. First, a young intern batters him over the head with a laptop, and then Yves from accounting stabs him savagely with a pen. And after a meeting with human resources, the poor guy is left with the curious feeling that, somehow, he deserved it. Even his shrink, who has a print of J.M.W. Turner’s ironic masterpiece “The Fighting Temeraire” on his wall, thinks so, planting further seeds of doubt in Vincent’s mind. “I think you’re looking for attention from those who attack you,” he decides.