Nowhere is the nature of the cinema that crosses the border than the Cannes Film Festivalwhich begins on Tuesday as a vote of US president Donald Trump to Promulgate tariffs on international films.
Cannes, where filmmakers, sales agents and journalists gather from around the world, are the Olympic Games on the big screen, with their own golden award, La Palma d’Or, to give the end. The filmmakers come from almost every corner of the world to exhibit their films while merchants work during the night to sell finished films or productions packaged to several territories.
“You release a film in that situation of Colosseum,” says Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who returns to Cannes with “The Secret Agent”, a thriller established during the dictatorship of Brazil. “You really have to prepare for all the experience because it is quite intense, not far from the feeling of approaching a roller coaster as you climb the steps in the Palais.”
Perhaps as much as always, all eyes in the world of cinema will be in the 78th Cannes Film Festival When starting this week. That is not just because of the long list of early films that will be released at the Cote D’Azur Festival (including Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster films) and the extensive clique of stars that are going to walk through the red folder (Jenniper Lawrence, Denzel Washington, Roberton Pattinson and Kristinson and Kristinon.
Like the films and the Oscar’s career, They have grown more internationalCannes’s global launchpad has become more central to the largest film ecosystem, even with The continuous absence of Netflix. The recent editions of Cannes have produced a series of contenders from the Academy Awards, including the best image winner this year, “Anora”.
At the same time, the geopolitical course through Cannes, unlike any other festival. Cannes’ red carpet can be as a platform for political protest as for glamor. This year’s festival will include a dissident Iranian filmmaker (Jafar Panhi), A Ukrainian filmmaker (Sergei Loznitsa) and the first Nigerian production in the official selection (“My Father’s Shadow” by Akinola Davies Jr.).
In the period prior to the festival, three filmmakers from different corners of the world talked about their roads to the alignment of Cannes’ competition. For many directors, reaching the competition of Cannes, this year, there are 22 films that compete for Palma d’Or, it is a professional milestone.
“It is significant for me. It is significant for the country,” says Oliver Hermanus, speaking from outside Cape Town. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker of “Moffie” and “Living,” He is in competition for the first time with “The History of Sound”, a period of time love starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor.
“I was born here and made movies here during most of my career, so I still see myself as a South African filmmaker who is interested in the South African perspective about things and the South African representation,” adds Hermanus. “Competition is something that I have always wanted to be part.”
Chie Hayakawa, the Japanese filmmaker of “Plan 75” of 2022, is also competing for the first time. First he came to Cannes with a film for students who never expected to arrive at the Festival Short Film program. This week, “Renoir” will debut, a semi -autobiographical story about an 11 -year -old girl with a father who has terminal cancer.
“It gives me great breath and keeps me motivated to make movies,” said Hayakawa from Tokyo. “I don’t feel that I’m going to compete with other films. But it’s significant. I know how prestigious and significant it is to be competition.”
“The cinema is global and easily crosses the borders of any country or culture,” he adds. “That is the special of Cannes.”
The global Cannes approach is part of what makes this year more complicated than usual. Trump sent shock waves through Hollywood and the international film community when he announced on May 4 that all films “produced in foreign lands” will face 100%tariffs.
The White House has said that no final decisions have been made. The options explored include federal incentives for productions based in the USA, instead of tariffs. But the announcement was a reminder of how international tensions can destabilize even the oldest cultural institutions.
Filho first attended Cannes as a critic. Once he started making films, the festival’s charm remained. For him, participating in Cannes means joining a timeline of the history of cinema. “The Secret Agent” marks his third time in the competition.
“I’ve always felt that there was a seriousness that I appreciated,” says Filho. “For example, I will attend a 2 am test for sound and image. This is done with the types of scientists who will be in charge of the projection and how everything will go.”
As for the threat of tariffs? He shrugs.
“Brazil I have trained, because we had a very strange and strange historical moment under (former president Jair) Bolsonaro,” Filho said. “I used my training to say: this is probably a bad idea or misunderstanding that will be corrected in the next few days or weeks. Even for leaders like them, Bolsonaro and Trump, it makes no sense.”
The Cannes Film Festival originally emerged in the years of World War II, when the emergence of fascism in Italy led to the foundation of an alternative to the then controlled government Venice Film Festival. In time since then, Cannes’s resolved commitment has made him a lighthouse for filmmakers. Innumerable directors have come to make their name.
This year is no different, although some of the filmmakers for the first time in Cannes are already particularly known. Stewart (“Water Chronology”), Scarlett Johansson (“Eleanor The Great”) and Harris Dickinson (“Urchin”) will present his debuts as director of Director in the sidebar section without respect of Cannes.
Many Cannes veterans will also return, including Tom Cruise (“Mission: impossible – the final calculation”), Robert de Niro (Who will receive an honorary Palma 49 years after the “taxi driver” premiered in Cannes) and Quentin Tarantino (to pay tribute to the western low -budget director, George Sherman).
Hermanus came to Cannes for the first time with his 2011 film “Beauty”. He became ingenious before realizing, he laughs, that a selection of Cannes is “a possible invitation to decapitation.”
“Even going now with ‘The History of Sound’, I am trying to be realistic about the fact that it is a sand of gladiators. It’s all to lose and everything to win,” says Hermanus. “When Cannes selected us, I realized me and Paul going: ‘Oh, God, here comes the real stress. Will we survive the intensity of Cannes?’ – Which we both agree is the reason to go. “
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