Female Filmmakers in Cannes Speak of Freedom and Its Price

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades has closed a raft of deals on “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be,” an animated feature which world premiered at Cannes in the Special Screenings section and will go on to compete at Annecy festival. Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, “Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be” is based on author René Goscinny and New Yorker cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé’s popular children books from the 1960’s which have been translated into than 30 languages.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentParis-based sales company Charades has closed a raft of deals on “Forever Young,” Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s film which competed at Cannes and earned a warm critical welcome. “Forever Young” opens at the end of the 1980s in Paris and follows a young troupe of comedians who have just have been admitted to Les Amandiers, the prestigious theater school headed by Patrice Chéreau. Bruni Tedeschi wrote the script alongside Agnès De Sacy and regular collaborator Noémie Lvovsky.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Lendarys,” a big-budget family adventure animation film that is currently in production, scored a handful of pre-sales during the Cannes Market. Rights sales are handled by Hong Kong-, Paris and Los Angeles-based All Rights Entertainment.With a production budget of $30 million, the film is the directorial debut of Philippe Duchene and Jean-Baptiste Cuvelier.

“War Pony” wins Palm Dog AwardBrit the Silver Poodle, who stars in Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s indigenous drama “War Pony,” took home the coveted Palm Dog collar, according to the Hollywood Reporter.The Palm Collar is awarded to the best performance by a canine or group of canines during the festival. The award consists of a leather dog collar with the term “PALM DOG.”Steve Pond, in his review of “War Pony” wrote, “Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and co-written, co-produced and starring members of the Native American community, “War Pony” is unhurried, naturalistic and heartbreaking, taking its rhythms from the lives of characters in a situation where the lack of options can lead to desperation or to resignation.

Lucas’ bishop warns him of the dangers before he sets out to minister to a remote community of Icelanders in Cannes Un Certain Regard title Godland. “It’s easy to go mad there,” he explains at his Copenhagen dining table, steadily chewing his way through the fabulous feast in front of him. Iceland, where the sun never sets on summer nights, where the weather is extreme, the landscape broodingly monumental: just remember the apostles, “a group of lonely men,” the bishop advises as he wipes his mouth. Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) is not eating; one glance tells you he’s a priest of an ascetic bent.

As countries go, Iceland is probably one of the most fast-changing in terms of its biological make up, its intense volcanic activities reshaping its surface and contours at a speed fast enough to be perceived within a single generation. Paradoxically, it is also a place where time appears to stand still, with the sun omnipresent for half the year and absent for the rest.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorWhen filmmaker Marie Kreutzer was writing “Corsage,” which chronicles a critical period in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as “Sissi,” she had in mind the experience of other women in the public eye, in particular Princess Diana and Meghan Markle. In recent weeks, she has been mulling the treatment of Amber Heard as well.

Lise Pedersen The top IEFTA (Intl. Film Talent Assn.) award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s documentary-focused industry sidebar Cannes Docs has gone to “Twice Colonized” by Lin Alluna.The film was developed by the Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers.The win marks a hat-trick for Circle since they started their partnership with Cannes Docs in 2020: previous IEFTA Docs-in-Progress Award laureates at the industry event include “Beauty of the Beast” by Anna Nemes, produced by Circle 2018 alumna Ágnes Horváth-Szabó, and “Cent’anni” by Circle 2020 alumna Maja Prelog, produced by Rok Biček.“Twice Colonized” tells the story of renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people.

L’innocent. For the occasion, she chose a black strapless column gown with a sash around the hips, matching black heels, and diamond jewelry. Her hair was slicked back and her eyeliner dramatic, somewhere between a wing tip and .The dress was designed by Gianni Versace himself, per , for Austrian opera singer Helga Dernesch for a performance of Salomé at the famous Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in 1987.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentPulsar Content has closed a raft of major deals on “La Maison,” Anissa Bonnefont’s erotic drama based on Emma Becker’s controversial bestselling novel chronicling the young author’s two-year undercover experience working as a sex worker at a Berlin brothel. The Paris-based company introduced the title to buyers at Cannes and sold it to Wild Bunch for Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, among other deals. Wild Bunch will team with Capelight for the German release.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent International Sales has closed major territory sales on “UFO Sweden,” a science fiction movie adventure from Crazy Pictures, a Swedish film collective whose past credits includes the 2018 hit movie “The Unthinkable.”Described as a mix between “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” “UFO Sweden” is set in a small town and follows a teenage rebel placed in foster care, who suspects that her father is not dead, but has been kidnapped by UFOs. With the help from a UFO association, she is determined to find out the truth.

Forbes). “I know we are human beings and that we are very complicated, and the power of art is that it knows no color. Because human beings, when they sit and watch art they want to feel less alone.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefIranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi insists that his Cannes competition film “Holy Spider” is not intended to be a controversial truth telling. Rather, he is telling the truth through a fictional interpretation of real events. The film chronicles a killing spree in the streets of the religious city of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead between 2000 and 2001.“I am not a big fan of serial killers or serial killer movies,” Abbasi said May 23 at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.  The French actress, 36, looked stunning in a black, blue and white striped short sleeved T-shirt which she paired with the black trousers.  The star added some height to her frame in a pair of towering black pointed toe heels as she attended the event in the Campari Lounge at the Palais des Festivals.

CANNES, France -- Cristian Mungiu's Cannes Film Festival entry “R.M.N.” is set in an unnamed mountainous Transylvanian village in Romania, but the conflicts of ethnocentricity, racism and nationalism that permeate the multi-ethnic town could take place almost anywhere.Of all the films competing for the top Palme d'Or prize at Cannes, none may be quite as of the moment as “R.M.N." The movie, using a Romanian microcosm, captures the us-vs-them battles that have played out across Europe and beyond, wherever immigration and national identities have collided.Mungiu, the celebrated Romanian filmmaker of the landmark 2007 abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," has long been accustomed to his films being written off as grim portraits of a faraway Eastern Europe. It's a caricature he rejects, especially when it comes to “R.M.N.”“Whenever journalists interpret that it’s yet again another somber painting of this country, well, it’s not about that country — or not only about that country,” Mungiu told reporters Sunday.

Lise Pedersen Scandinavia is bringing talent old and new to the Cannes Film Market’s Cannes Docs sidebar this year, with a showcase of five feature length films-in-the-making pitched as part of the Scandinavian Showcase on Saturday.“Children of the Lowest Heaven”From Denmark, internationally acclaimed writer-director Birgitte Stærmose Mortensen (“Darling,” “Room 304”), who has been working on mini-series for HBO, Starz and Netflix for the past five years (“Industry” season 2, “The Spanish Princess,” “In From the Cold” and “The English Game”), presented “Children of the Lowest Heaven” (“Ønskeliv”), a hybrid doc set in Kosovo.Inspired by her short “Out of Love” (2009), about a group of children living in poverty in post-war Pristina, it picks up where she left off with the characters, who are now young adults, still fighting to survive in one of Europe’s poorest nations. It’s about the long-term effects of war, and what it means to live a life in poverty.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive Editor“Holy Spider,” a gritty drama about a real-life Iranian serial killer, stunned the Cannes Film Festival at its premiere on Sunday afternoon, earning a thunderous seven-minute standing ovation and bringing a jolt of electricity to what’s been a sleepy festival so far.The film, from Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi (“Border”), chronicles a killing spree in the streets of the religious city of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer. But in one of many twists in this drama, the identity of the serial killer is revealed early on — he’s a war veteran named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a seemingly normal family man who spends his nights picking up women on his motorcycle and brutally strangling them in his home as a religious cleansing ritual.

IFC Films has nabbed North American rights to “Corsage,” Marie Kreutzer’s bold costume drama starring Vicky Krieps as the Empress Elisabeth of Austria known as Sissi. Represented in international markets by MK2 Films, the movie world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and earned unanimous praises.

Here are some of the key talking points from the Cannes Film Festival and market at half-way.