Speaking breathlessly to the ceremony’s black-tied international audience after thanking the festival jury — as led by writer-director Greta Gerwig — and his film’s various collaborators, stars and producers, the acclaimed indie filmmaker turned his attention to his mounting concern over the future of cinema. Specifically, he addressed the moviegoing experience.

“This literally has been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the past 30 years, so I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. But I do know that I will continue to fight for cinema because right now as filmmakers, we have to fight to keep cinema alive,” Baker said. He then turned his attention to the matter at hand: “This means making feature films intended for theatrical exhibition.”

“The world has to be reminded that watching a film at home while scrolling through your phone, while checking emails and half paying attention, is just not the way — although some tech companies would like us to think so,” Baker continued, winking to the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, Disney+ and Hulu. He argued for the community built around theatrical moviegoing.

“Watching a film with others in a movie theater is one of the great communal experiences. We share laughter, sorrow, anger, fear and hopefully have a catharsis with our friends and strangers — and that’s sacred,” he said before he concluded: “So I see the future of cinema as where is started: in a movie theater.”

Director #SeanBaker, who just won the #PalmedOr de #Cannes for his movie #ANORA, delivered a passionate acceptance speech, saying filmmakers need to fight for keeping movie theatres alive and that he sees the future of cinema exactly where it started: in a movie theatre!!! pic.twitter.com/0LJfc1LtIc

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) May 25, 2024

“Anora” will be released later this year in the U.S. by Neon, making it the fifth year in a row that the indie distribution company has bagged the winner of Cannes’ biggest prize. Global distribution rights were acquired in October 2023 by FilmNation Entertainment.

The film stars “Scream” and “Better Things” standout Mikey Madison in the role of Anora, an exotic dancer in New York City who strikes up an unlikely romance and lightning-fast elopement with the son of a Russian oligarch, played by Mark Eidelstein.

Watch a clip from Baker’s speech in the video from X embedded above.

The post Sean Baker Shades Streamers While Calling on Hollywood to ‘Keep Cinema Alive’ in Rousing Cannes Speech | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

In a video shared online, Taveras is seen adjusting the lengthy train of her gown, which had a large portrait of Jesus on it, down the red carpet stairs for photos when the security officer shooed her forward. Taveras appeared frustrated by the usher and the gown’s train, and at one point threw the material at two men who accompanied her before she made it to the top of the stairs.

At that point, Taveras attempted to lay out the train of her gown for photos as the usher held her arm in front of the actress, similarly to how she kept an arm in front of Rowland throughout their exchange. Taveras gestured widely toward the usher, who seemed to attempt to help with the train, and waved at the waiting crowd.

The usher then put an arm around Taveras, who in turn shoved her away.

Representatives for Cannes did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

On Friday, Taveras shared photos from the event on Instagram. She captioned her post in part, “This is the first time in 77 years of the great Cannes festival that Jesus is exhibited on this stage and it is the first time that a work of art by Dominicanos is published and valued by the legendary magazine #vanityfairitalia #vanityfairitaly EL CRISTO ‘is the most shocking love story of all time and today made history once again, come to see this.”

“THE 22nd was the big night, the premiere of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ was exquisite and unforgettable, I still find myself in Cannes, France on the agenda of the festival that ends tomorrow, I will be here for a few days, I am amazed at what God has done through THE CHRIST.”

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A post shared by M A S S I E L T A V E R A S (@masieltaveras)

On Thursday Rowland explained of her own run-in with the usher, “The woman knows what happened, I know what happened, and I have a boundary. I stand by those boundaries, and that is it.”

“There were other women that attended that carpet who did not quite look like me,” she added. “They didn’t get scolded or pushed off or told to get off. And I stood my ground and she felt like she needed to stand hers.”

The post Cannes Usher Who Clashed With Kelly Rowland Stops Dominican Actress Massiel Taveras From Posing on the Red Carpet | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

The win for Baker’s freewheeling film about a stripper and the son of a Russian oligarch becomes the fifth consecutive Palme winner to be distributed by Neon, which previously handled “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Triangle of Sadness,” “Titane” and “Parasite.”

TheWrap’s review said of the film, “It’s one of the most entertaining movies to play in Cannes this year, and also one of the most confounding: part character study of the title character (Mikey Madison), a sex worker from Brighton Beach who falls for rich Russian playboy Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn); part look into the world of the super-rich, an arena Baker has studiously avoided in films like ‘Tangerine,’ ‘The Florida Project’ and ‘Red Rocket’; part escalating nightmare comedy reminiscent of ’80s gems like ‘After Hours’ and ‘Married to the Mob.’ It swings wildly back and forth while also hanging onto its heart, and it’s just too much fun to worry about how much Baker is cramming into its two hours and 18 minutes.”

In his acceptance speech, Baker dedicated the award “to all sex workers, past, present and future.”

The Grand Prix, the runner-up award to the Palme d’Or, went to “All We Imagine as Light” by Payal Kapadia, the first Indian filmmaker to compete for the Palme in three decades.

Miguel Gomes was named the festival’s best director for “Grand Tour.”

Rather than a single award for best actress, the jury announced a group award for four actresses from Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical “Emilia Perez”: Adriana Paz, Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez. The win made Sofia Gascon the first trans actress to win the award at Cannes.

“Emilia Perez” also won the Jury Prize, which is essentially the third-place award.

Jesse Plemons won the best actor award for playing three different roles in Yorgos Lanthimos’ twisted anthology film “Kinds of Kindness.”

The screenplay award went to “The Substance” by Coralie Fargeat. A special award for screenplay went to Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which he premiered after fleeing imprisonment in Iran for making the film.

Halfdan Ullman Tondel, the grandson of actress Liv Ullman and director Ingmar Bergman, won the Camera d’Or for the festival’s best first film for “Armand.”

Gerwig’s jury also included directors J.A. Bayona, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Nadine Labaki and actors Lily Gladstone and Eva Green. It was the fourth Cannes jury in the last 10 years, and the seventh in the last 25, on which women outnumbered men.

Other films in competition included Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” and David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds.”

Three of the last four winners of the Palme d’Or — “Anatomy of a Fall” last year, “Triangle of Sadness” in 2022 and “Parasite” in 2019 — went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, with “Parasite” becoming the first film to win both awards since “Marty” in 1955.

Also at the ceremony, George Lucas was presented with an Honorary Palme d’Or by Francis Ford Coppola.

Other Cannes awards, including the top prizes in the Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections, can be found here.

The winners:

Palme d’Or: “Anora,” Sean Baker
Grand Prix: “All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia.
Jury Prize: “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
Best Director: Miguel Gomes, “Grand Tour”
Best Actor: Jesse Plemons, “Kinds of Kindness”
Best Actress: Adriana Paz, Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez, “Emilia Perez”
Best Screenplay: “The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat
Special Award for Best Screenplay: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof

Camera d’Or (Best First Film): “Armand,” Halfdan Ullman Tondel

Short Film Palme d’Or: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent,” Nebojsa Slijepcevic
Short Film Special Mention: “Bad for a Moment,” Daniel Soares

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If there was ever a film to capture this, it would be the spellbinding though scattered “Grand Tour” from director Miguel Gomes. His latest is an expansive, sweeping work that bends time, space, genre,and form. It is a wholly uncompromising experience that dances with mirth and melancholy. Proving to be evocative in one moment and unrelentingly exhausting in the next, it’s as gorgeous to behold visually as it is hard to completely embrace thematically. And yet, if you abandon yourself to it by the end as one character says, you can catch glimpses of something spectacularly sublime in the vast journey that it takes on. 

Premiering in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the story from Gomes and co-writers Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro, and Maureen Fazendeiro almost itself becomes incidental. Though Gomes directed much of the film remotely while it was shot during the height of the COVID pandemic, this is not a thoughtful musing on that specific crisis as much as it is a frequently impenetrable exploration of time, place, and two people who also don’t particularly matter.

The first is Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) who has left behind the second, his longtime fiancée Molly (Crista Alfaiate), to set off across the world. The buffoonish British diplomat seems driven by the need to never stop moving, despite the many telegraphs that his fiancée keeps sending him urging him to do so. He will journey to Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Osaka, Shanghai, and more, with narration playing out over all of it until you start to think you’ve got a read on the whole thing. Then a midpoint curveball changes the game, although the shift too remains largely unimportant as it plays as a chilling note of life’s futility.

All of this is what the film is about in a broad sense, but such a strictly linear description of the progression is wildly insufficient to fully capture the many things that Gomes is going for here. Everything feels gargantuan in a rather unwieldy sense, as if these two characters are but mere pawns in a game neither fully understands. The shifting from black-and-white to color, as well as more modern footage to the film’s recreations of the early 1900s, serves this well, embodying just how much there is going on all at once at all times. While one hesitates to call it a satire, this approach feels like it is lightly skewering the superficial romantic story at the core of the film and the long history of cinema that uses various countries as nothing more than a backdrop. Despite the film gesturing towards a reunion between the duo, nothing ends up being so simple. 

What tenuously ties the two characters together are the telegrams and the places they each go, though the experiences they have as they do so could not be more different. Edward seems almost perpetually somber whereas Molly embraces silliness, giving the most unique laugh you’ll ever see in a film. There is so much anarchic absurdity to life and the film, that such laughter seems like the right response.

However, just as one character is running away and another is running towards, the film is stronger when we shift to the second half with Molly. The juxtaposition of her experience with Edward’s makes everything feel more pointed and poetic. There is still much that remains abstract, as Gomes remains uninterested in making anything particularly explicit, but that is all by design. Despite our desire to make sense of what can be an impenetrable existence, the onward march of time cares little about what it is that we want from our lives. There is similarly a good chance many will desire more to hold this film together, as much remains frustratingly scattered in Edward’s portion of the film, but it still builds to an absolute showstopper of a finale. 

Midway through the film, when Molly goes to get her future read by a psychic, she grows angry at what she is told. Only later do we realize this may be one of the few moments of clarity she actually gets in her life. It’s an audacious conclusion in a film that, while never lacking for boldness, benefits greatly from this final flourish. That it remains beguiling, both for the characters and the audience, feels baked into the experience. We may spend a lifetime grasping for something, only to find it always out of reach. Even if you look to the sky and see the bigger picture, it may be too late.

The post ‘Grand Tour’ Review: Miguel Gomes’ Sprawling Travelogue Traverses Space and Time appeared first on TheWrap.

Which is more or less what happened to “Cold War” director Paweł Pawlikowski, who spent years trying to find coherence for such an unruly tale before ultimately giving up and handing off the project to Kirill Serebrennikov. That Russian film and theater director did stay the course all the way through, even when that course required six months of shutdowns following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Though the real Limonov spent the last years of his life cheerleading for such an invasion, you won’t hear many echoes of that (ever-ongoing) conflict but for a closing-credits cap in Serebrennikov’s “Limonov: The Ballad,” which premiered in the Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Indeed, as that added subtitle would suggest, Serebrennikov’s take is closer in tune to his 2017 musical biopic “Leto,” offering another stage for the filmmaker’s brand of big-screen showmanship that skirts the challenges of a narrative biography by resetting its terms on more comfortable stylistic grounds. 

That’s not exactly bad news, as Serebrennikov’s style is accomplished and distinctive enough to warrant a spotlight in Cannes for each of his past five films. The Russian auteur has developed a poetic language all of his own, orchestrating unbroken traveling shots that dip in and out of fantasy and while collapsing both narrative and expository elements into an organic and interactive visual space.

Serebrennikov doesn’t simply note the passage of time with an onscreen supertitle; instead he builds that information onto his sets before embellishing those frames with annotations and asides, and introducing background dancers swaying to the music we initially thought only the audience could hear. 

That might explain Serebrennikov’s dedication to this project, because in the punk poet Eduard Limonov, the maximalist filmmaker has found his ideal Byronic rogue. Played with sinewy energy by Ben Whishaw, the character that goes by “Eddie” moves through the world with a chip on his shoulder and a fire in his guts. Eddie, you see, was born under a different family name, rebranding himself Limonov to evoke the Russian word for grenade, taking on a nom-de-plume that doubles as a nom-de-guerre as he cuts a fearsome path through the literary salons of the USSR. 

Mind you, Eddie’s rakish persona most fully emerges once the aspiring poet and his aspiring model wife Yelena (Viktoria Miroshnichenko, “Beanpole”) find themselves willingly and eagerly exiled to the Big Apple at the city’s grimiest low. If our two starving artists seize on John Lindsay’s New York with wanton pleasure, taking in every squalid pleasure the city has to offer, they just as readily seek out adversity. The film frames the artist as gutter punk, sponging up dirt and grime and grease and gruel to channel it back into his work. The problem is, no one cares to actually read that work, which only fuels Eddie’s anti-social malaise.

The director takes equal delight in his New York City playground, devoting more than half the film to that American stopover, most of it scored to the music of Lou Reed. The film sometimes plays like a jukebox musical of urban squalor, revealing more of the filmmaker’s passions than those of the title character. Eventually Eddie loses his marriage but gains full-time employment, moving on up to the Upper East Side to serve as live-in butler for a lush millionaire. That new station taps him into a network of dissident Russian authors – he hates them, of course. 

That hatred only grows by the time Eddie finds literary success of his own in Paris a decade later, and it reaches a white hot peak by the time he gets back home just in time to watch the Berlin Wall fall from the Eastern side. If, as described, these pieces feel like self-evident building blocks leading towards a skinhead-adjacent ideology, the film itself resists such psychological profiling. Instead, “Limonov: The Ballad” leans into the more visceral extremes of Eddie’s experience, playing into Serebrennikov’s strengths as a screen stylist above all else.

That makes for a galvanizing bout of agitprop somehow devoid of politics, a portrait of an artist-turned-agitator that elides the man’s intellectual life and output. 

For good or ill, “Limonov: The Ballad” reflects the limitations of this kind of biopic form, owning up to its inability to account or explain its central paradox by doodling around the margins. This ballad finds a groove and rides it out, showcasing the director’s chops and the star’s commitment while shining little new light on the ostensible subject.  In that sense, “Limonov: The Ballad” most ably lives up to one half of its title.

The post ‘Limonov: The Ballad’ Review: Ben Whishaw Shines in a Jukebox Musical of Urban Squalor appeared first on TheWrap.

The film stars Eddie Peng as a stunt motorcyclist who returns to his hometown after serving a jail term. The film was one of 18 in the Un Certain Regard section, which is typically devoted to younger or lesser known filmmakers than the ones who compete in Cannes’ Main Competition.

Other Un Certain Regard awards include the jury prize to Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane,” the directing award to Roberto Minervini for “The Damned” and Rungano Nyoni for “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” and performance awards to Anasuya Sengupta for “The Shameless” and Abou Sangare for “The Story of Souleymane.”

In other Cannes awards announced at different times, the festival’s first-ever immersive award was given to “Colored” by Tania de Montaigne, Stephane Foenkinos and Pierre Alain-Giraud, while the LaCinef Prize for a student film went to “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know” by Chidananda S. Naik from FTII in India.

In awards that are not official Cannes prizes, Federico Luis won the Grand Prize in the Critics’ Week sidebar for “Simon of the Mountain,” while the audience award in the Directors Fortnight sidebar went to “Universal Language” by Matthew Rankin.

The Palm Dog, a tongue-in-cheek award given to the best canine performance in Cannes, went to Kodi for “Dog on Trial.”

The highest-profile Cannes awards, including the Palme d’Or, will be handed out on Saturday evening at the festival’s closing ceremony.

The list of awards:

UN CERTAIN REGARD
Grand Prix: “Black Dog,” Hu Guan
Jury Prize: “The Story of Souleymane,” Boris Lojkine
Best Director: Roberto Minervini, “The Damned” and Rungano Nyoni, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”
Performance Award: Anasuya Sengupta, “The Shameless” and Abou Sangare, “The Story of Souleymane”
Youth Prize: “Holy Cow,” Louise Courvoisier
Special Mention: “Nora,” Tawfik Alzaidi

IMMERSIVE COMPETITION
Best Immersive Work: “Colored,” Tania de Montaigne, Stephane Foenkinos, Pierre Alain-Giraud

LA CINEF PRIZES
First Prize: “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know…”
Chidananda S. Naik
FTII, Pune, India

Joint Second Prize:
“Out the Window Through the Wall”
Asya Segalovich
Columbia University, United States

“The Chaos She Left Behind”
Nikos Kolioukos
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Third Prize: “Bunnyhood”
Mansi Maheshwari
National Film and Television School, United Kingdom

FIPRESCI PRIZES
In Competition: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof
Un Certain Regard: “The Story of Souleymane,” Boris Lojkine
Parallel section (first features): “Desert of Namibia,” Yoko Yamanaka

DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT
Audience Award: “Universal Language,” Matthew Rankin
Europa Cinemas Label Award for Best European Film: “The Other Way Around,” Jonas Trueba
SACD Prize for Best French Film: “This Life of Mine,” Sophie Fillieres

CRITICS’ WEEK
Grand Prize: “Simon of the Mountains,” Federico Luis
French Touch Prize of the Jury: “Blue Sun Palace,” Constance Tsang
Leitz Cine Discover Prize for Short Film: “Montsouris Park,” Guil Sela
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Richardo Teodoro, “Baby”
Gan Foundation Award for Distribution: “Julie Keeps Quiet,” Leonardo Van Dijl
Canal+ Award for Short Film: “Absent,” Cam Demirer
SACD Award: “Julie Keeps Quiet”

L’Œil d’or Award: “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Raoul Peck
“The Brink of Dreams,” Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir

Queer Palme: “Three Kilometers to the End of the World,” Emmanuel Parvu
Best Short Film: “Southern Brides,” Elena Lopez Riera

Prix de la Citoyennete Citizenship Prize: “Bird,” Andrea Arnold

Prix des Cinemas Art et Essai Art House Cinema Award: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof
Special mention: “All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia

PALM DOG
Palm Dog Award: Kodi, “Dog on Trial”
Grand Jury Prize: Xin, “Black Dog”
Mutt Moments: “Bird,” “Kinds of Kindness,” “Megalopolis”

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However, the longer it all goes on, the more we are brought right into the camps themselves. The result is a film that feels like it’s pulling itself in different directions, going from leaning hard on narration to spell everything out in one moment to being delicately melancholic in another. Based on Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 2019 novel of the same name and with a screenplay by Grumberg and director Michel Hazanavicius (“Final Cut”), it’s often significantly different from the source material. Though mostly successful in the alterations that are made, there are some painfully sour notes as we get closer to the end that threaten to undercut the whole thing. 

Premiering Friday in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the film begins with the story of a woodcutter and his wife who live alone in the forest. While they are getting by, theirs is still a harsh life. It’s then both a blessing and a curse that they don’t have children. On the one hand, they don’t have another mouth to feed. On the other, the woodcutter’s wife deeply wants one. 

She then finds one that has been thrown free from the passing train that is carrying countless Jewish people off to be killed. The act was done out of desperation by a father — anywhere was better than the horrors that they were moving towards. The woodcutter’s wife then devotes her every waking hour to raising the child while her husband is hateful towards the newborn and dismissive of the whole idea. With an often effective though occasionally tonally off-kilter score by Alexandre Desplat, the film attempts to navigate what can be quite shaky narrative ground. 

What keeps it steady is a simple yet often stunning animation style that grows on you. Almost looking more like it was originally a children’s storybook that has leaped off the pages and come to life, it plays like a fairytale where the wheels of mass death turn on the margins of the frame. At least, that’s where they are to start, as we soon see them come right into the center to mixed results. There is a tendency to praise the decision to look vast historical horror dead in the eyes as “unflinching,” but there is something to be said for exercising care with how you go about doing so. Just last year at the festival, Jonathan Glazer’s monumental “The Zone of Interest” grappled with how to go about doing this and made something as thoughtful as it was terrifying.

To compare “The Most Precious of Cargoes” to that Oscar-winning film might be a bit unfair, as this is clearly meant to be a more accessible work of animation. At the same time, all cinema attempting to depict the Holocaust must engage with these questions and each now lives in the shadow of films like Glazer’s. There is much to “The Most Precious of Cargoes” that seems aware of this in its early stretches. Even when we are eventually taken inside one of the train cars to see the grief in the father’s eyes as he throws his child out in an attempt to save her, it never crosses the line into feeling exploitative. But other moments near the end of the film, including one of a character looking at their reflection in a window, lack this tact and instead feel leering. 

There is redemption that the film finds in its ending. Rather than spelling things out, the final lines complicate what we have seen and why we’re drawn to these types of stories. Despite the rocky journey to get there, the film manages to pull itself back from the brink just as it somberly pulls into one more station.

The post ‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’ Review: Michel Hazanavicius’ Animated Holocaust Drama Struggles With Restraint appeared first on TheWrap.

Netflix Goes Hard

Netflix made waves when it was revealed that the streaming giant is in talks to buy one of the buzziest titles of the festival: Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” the musical crime thriller about a Mexican cartel leader undergoing gender-affirming surgery. The movie stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña and Édgar Ramírez and received a lengthy standing ovation, as well as loads of critical praise.

Our own review (by Ben Croll) called it a “home run.” Continuing the baseball metaphor, the review states: “The themes are broad and brassy as the film that explores them, and all the better still. It was about time for someone to take such a big swing, and to hit the ball so far out the park.”

“Emilia Pérez,” it should be noted, is one of the few films coming out of the festival that seems to have a legitimate shot at winning the Palme d’Or, given the somewhat muted response to most of the movies that have played at the festival so far. Audiard is no stranger to accolades at Cannes; his 2010 feature “A Prophet” won the Grand Prix and his 2015 feature “Dheepan” won the Palme d’Or. (“Rust and Bone” competed for the Palme d’Or in 2012. It is excellent.)

Could Netflix have the buzziest movie of the festival and the big winner? We’ll know soon enough.

Speaking of Netflix, they also announced that they acquired “Monsanto” in a deal worth $30 million and encompassing worldwide rights. The movie is cowritten and directed by John Lee Hancock, who made “The Blind Side” and more recently “The Little Things” and “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” with Glen Powell playing a young attorney making a case against the titular U.S. chemical company Monsanto. Anthony Mackie plays a high school groundskeeper who used the herbicide Roundup as part of his job. Laura Dern plays Monsanto’s chief toxicologist, who testified that using Roundup is safe. Spoiler alert: it was not safe.

The film’s script was developed in association with Karl Spoerri’s Zurich Avenue and written by Michael Wisner, Alexandra Duparc, Ned Benson and Hancock. “Monsanto” is being produced by Moritz Borman, Eric Kopeloff, Philip Schulz-Deyle and Jon Levin alongside HyperObject Industries’ Adam McKay and Kevin Messick.

Clearly, Netflix isn’t just thinking about this year’s awards race — they’re well into the future.

Kelly Rowland Talks Red Carpet Scuffle

On Tuesday, Kelly Rowland was seen having an odd encounter with a security guard while attending the premiere of the film “Marcello Mio.” The security guard kept touching her arm and trying to move her into the theater, but Rowland, an actress and former member of R&B group Destiny’s Child, didn’t budge. The encounter also included Rowland talking heatedly to another security guard — the security guard that was hassling her also stepped on her gown. It was a lot.

Rowland talked about the incident with the Associated Press, telling the outlet, “The woman knows what happened, I know what happened, and I have a boundary. I stand by those boundaries, and that is it.”

Rowland continued: “There were other women that attended that carpet who did not quite look like me,” she said. “They didn’t get scolded or pushed off or told to get off. And I stood my ground and she felt like she needed to stand hers.”

There you have it. Cannes is dependable for a few things: great movies, great parties and people making red carpets awkward for no good reason. This security guard certainly filled that role this year.

Reviews

How about some reviews?

We’ve got writer Chase Hutchinson reviewing “Beating Hearts,” which seemingly nobody enjoyed, despite it starring Cannes regular (and one of the world’s most exciting actresses) Adèle Exarchopoulos. Hutchinson wrote, “The film takes a nosedive just as the characters’ lives start to fall apart. It is never able to recover. No matter how much it cranks up the music or tries to recall the way with which this all began, it settles for being more of a standard, though painfully overstretched at nearly three hours, melodrama.” Yikes!

Hutchinson also reviewed Sandhya Suri’s debut feature “Santosh,” which he said “subverts the standard police procedural.” Well, that’s good.

We also have Ben Croll reviewing “All We Imagine as Light,” which he loved. “The heat, hustle, glory and grind of modern-day Mumbai give way to something all the more mysterious and ever so beguiling in Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light,’ an expansive and intimate feature that has itself shined some late-breaking glory on this year’s Cannes Film Festival,” Croll wrote, breathlessly.

And Hutchinson also reviewed “Motel Destino,” from filmmaker Karim Aïnouz. Hutchinson wrote: “While it never lacks for colorful visuals and steamy sequences, the most memorable part of the ‘Motel Destino’ is how stripped of life it feels. For all that happens in it, from the looming sinister specter of murder to the many sexual escapades, it never rises above a dull background roar. There is much that is vibrant to look at, but even that grows tired with nothing else to lean on.”

The post Cannes Day 10: Netflix Spends Big on Jacques Audiard’s ‘Emilia Pérez’ appeared first on TheWrap.

The post ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Profoundly Brave Film Captures the Struggle of Iran’s People appeared first on TheWrap.

Prabha’s issues are more metaphysical, however, linked to an arranged marriage to a chap who fled the country shortly after their nuptials. He left the nurse with little more proof of matrimony than the occasional overseas care-package and the societal expectation that she snuff out new sparks of romance.

And dammit, the woman has suitors, including a doctor colleague who treats his own case of urban ennui by writing poetry. In one of the film’s greatest highs, Prabha reads one of those poems to herself late one night, sitting before her open window as the heat swelters and the power turns off. Lit by the cityscape behind her, the lovesick nurse makes her inner life tactile and her soul universal. She feels as if she’s one in 22 million, and, in that precise moment, like she’s the only damn person in the world.

While Kapadia and Sofia Coppola explore different sides of the socioeconomic spectrum, both share a similar interest in interiority, and in the ways female characters create intimate worlds to shield against unforgiving externalities. This vision of Mumbai can certainly be harsh, most clearly exemplified by a third colleague: nurse Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), now getting evicted so that developers may turn her home of 20 years into a luxury condo. (The new building’s sales pitch: “Class is for the privileged.” Well, thanks.)

With few opportunities for recourse, Parvaty makes the decision all urbanites dread, setting the stage for a second act that finds the two younger nurses helping their older colleague return to her seaside village. Through this change in scenery arrives a delicate change in tone, one that reframes the film’s title with emphasis on a different word.

Once freed from the iron grip of realism, “All We Imagine as Light” begins to offer its leads what the city never could. We will reveal nothing further, because Kapadia herself parcels out these reveals at a deliberate pace, offering metaphysical hints with the gentleness of a sea breeze.

That gentleness spans out across the film, informing and underscoring both sides. If Kapadia never hides the harsher elements of urban life, she also does not accentuate them or cast them in a miserablist glow. Taking place almost entirely at night, the film’s Mumbai first-half swings to a jazzy piano score, finding squalor and grandeur as two sides of the same coin.

Setting the second act under the daytime sun, Kapadia keeps things equally lush, playing into the promise that sends so many millions to any global metropolis. It also leads us to the mantra we repeat to gird us through the daily grind once there. “You have to believe the illusion,” says a disembodied voice in a mid-film documentary reset. “Otherwise you’ll go mad.”

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