Cannes Embraces Catalonia

more fun. What would a trip to the Italian seaside be without a headscarf and a flowing skirt, for example? There’s an art to nailing the fashion mood of whatever destination you’re visiting, and someone who nailed this approach today is none other than Selena Gomez. The was spotted in Paris dressing like a true French girl.

Romance pic Charlie Harper, starring CODA actor Emilia Jones alongside Toby Wallace (Babyteeth), has inked a series of international deals out of last week’s Cannes Market.

Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-based Cannes Competition title Perfect Days has clocked a series of international deals for The Match Factory.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” which won the best actor award for Koji Yakusho at the Cannes Film Festival, has sold out worldwide. The Match Factory is handling international sales. As previously announced, North American rights went to Neon and France went to Haut et Court. Further sales included U.K./Ireland/Latin America/Turkey (MUBI), Australia/New Zealand (Madman), Benelux (Paradiso), China (DDDream), Italy (Lucky Red), Spain (A Contracorriente), Switzerland (DCM), Baltics (A-One Baltics), Bulgaria (Art Fest), CIS (A-One), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Former Yugoslavia (MCF), Greece (Feelgood Entertainment), Hong Kong (Edko Films), Hungary (Cirko), Israel (Lev Cinemas), Poland (Gutek), Portugal (Alambique), Romania (Bad Unicorn), Scandinavia (Future Film) and Taiwan (Applause).

Documentary fans might be forgiven for nurturing a dream – that Cannes would follow the recent example of Venice and Berlin and award its top prize to a nonfiction film. Complete the documentary Triple Crown – the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Palme d’or.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales house Totem Films has closed distribution deals in multiple territories for “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” which had its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. The company also closed a deal for France for another Directors’ Fortnight film, “A Song Sung Blue.” “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” was sold to France (Capricci), U.K. (New Wave), Benelux (Vedette), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Greece (Ama Films), Czech Republic (Artcam), and Germany (Eksystent). More deals are in negotiation. The distributor in Switzerland is Frenetic. The film, directed by Elene Navierani, centers on Etero, a 48-year-old woman living in a small village in Georgia. Etero never wanted a husband and cherishes her freedom as much as her cakes. But her choice to live alone is the cause of much gossip among her fellow villagers.

Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera” flits between languages (English, Italian, French, German) as fluidly as it does mediums (35mm, Super16mm, and 16mm cinematography) and styles (jerkily sped up Chaplin-esque scenes, clinical CCTV footage, audacious 180-degree camera flips). Rohrwacher uses this mosaic of disparate approaches to hone in on other kinds of incongruous and unpredictable interplay: modern Italy and its ancient past, heartbreak and new love, and the real world and its spiritual mirror realm.

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. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “The Pot Au Feu” from French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng may be one of the most radical films competing for a Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes. The sensorial movie, set in late-19th century France, opens with a mouthwatering cooking sequence that runs nearly 40 minutes and portrays a slow-cooking romance with a minimalist plot. Yet, Hùng, best known for his Cannes’ Golden Camera-winning “The Scent of Green Papaya” and Venice Golden Lion-winning “Cyclo,” tells Variety he’s always been confident “The Pot Au Feu” would strike a chord beyond the foodie niche, and it has. The movie earned some of the competition’s strongest reviews on the heels of its world premiere and a U.S. deal is currently being negotiated by Gaumont. Variety‘s Guy Lodge praised the film for holding its audience “entirely on the pleasures of beauty, vicarious indulgence and, eventually, the human care inherent in haute cuisine.”

Christopher Vourlias What’s in a name? For the Congolese Belgian rapper-turned-filmmaker Baloji, whose directorial debut, “Omen,” bows in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section on May 22, it’s a question that poses itself whenever flustered immigration officials inspect his passport at the airport in Congo. “Always the same question, every time,” Baloji tells Variety. “Do you know what it means?” In the pre-colonial era, baloji meant “man of science” in Swahili, but the word became corrupted by Christian evangelists during the years of Belgian colonial rule. Today it is more akin to a man of occult sciences and sorcery. “Some people of faith do not dare to say my name in public for fear of invoking evil spirits and the suspicions that may accompany it,” the director says. “In such an animistic culture it is equivalent to being called devil or demon in the West.”

UK director Molly Manning Walker’s first film How To Have Sex won the top prize in Cannes Un Certain Regard on Friday evening.

Uk director Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex won the top prize in Cannes Un Certain Regard on Friday evening.

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera absolutely charmed the Cannes Film Festival audience at its world premiere in competition this afternoon, receiving a 9-minute standing ovation inside the Palais’ Lumière theater. For those keeping score, that ties for the longest of this year’s event with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon which played out of competition.

A Chimera is something one tries to achieve but alas, never manages to find. It is the heart and soul of a quest in life, in different ways, for the cast of characters in writer/director Alice Rohrwacher’s beautiful new film La Chimera premiering today as one of the last entries in competition at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It also happens to be one of the best.

In less than 10 years, Alice Rohrwacher has carved out a formidable reputation for herself, notably by gatecrashing the boys’ club that is traditionally the Cannes competition, and the fact that she did so in 2014 with only her second film, The Wonders, is further proof of a distinctive talent. One competition slot doesn’t guarantee another, yet Rohrwacher was back in 2018 with the follow-up, Happy as Lazzaro. Both films won prizes — Grand Prix and Best Screenplay, respectively — which means that expectations are high for the Oscar-nominated 41-year-old Italian, whose new film, La chimera, makes it three in a row.

Heidi Klum inadvertently became part of the “free the nipple” movement, when her titillating gown couldn’t hold her together.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Jonathan Glazer’s Nazi drama “The Zone of Interest” has sold into major international territories following its buzzy Cannes world premiere. The film centers on the family of a high-ranking SS official that lives next door to Auschwitz concentration camp. The pic has sold into: Austria and Germany (Leonine), Benelux (Cineart), France (BAC), Greece (Spentzos), Italy (I Wonder), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Scandinavia (SF Studios), Spain (Elastica) and Switzerland (Filmcoopi). In Poland — a significant sales market for the film given it is set there — Gutek has come on board as distributor. (A24 was selling worldwide rights for the film, but did not handle the Polish sale.)

A24 has unveiled a raft of key territory deals for Jonathan Glazer’s hotly tipped Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or frontrunner The Zone Of Interest ahead of the awards ceremony on Saturday.

Bonjour, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here to guide you through a whirlwind week in film and television. Cannes is nearly over, while we’ve got the latest twist in the ongoing U.S. labor disputes, which could have worldwide ramifications. Read on and don’t forget to subscribe here.

Anthony Chen’s well-regarded Mainland China-set “The Breaking Ice” has found favor with multiple European and Asian buyers in the few days since its Sunday premiere as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard. The film narrates a love triangle story among China’s lost youth generation and is set in the middle of winter in Yanji, a town that is heavily populated by ethnic Koreans. It is headlined by a star-studded Chinese cast of Zhou Dongyu (“Better Days”), Liu Haoran (“Detective Chinatown” franchise) and Qu Chuxiao (“The Wandering Earth”). “The Breaking Ice” has been newly licensed to Challan for release in South Korea, Trigon-Film for Switzerland, One From the Heart for Greece, Tucker Film for Italy and Edko Films for Hong Kong.Rights sales are handled by Rediance, Mainland China’s leading indie sales company, which reports that addition territory deals are currently being negotiated.