Cannes 2018 Film Festival

So the curtain finally came down on the 71st Cannes Film Festival with one last glamorous red carpet that had the full jury, led by Cate Blanchett, walk filmdom’s most famous staircase, followed by the cast of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the closing film which was screened after the ceremony. The Terry Gilliam movie is legendary for the production nightmares which plagued it and the decades-long legal wrangling in which it became entangled, resulting in a 30-year delay in its eventual completion and wrapping it in an aura of ultimate film maudit.

Wait! What do you mean? Caucasians aren’t the only people making art? Yes, there are some impactful films to be seen at Cannes, but the biggest headline is that the world is represented in all its variations and it’s wonderful to see.

Much has been made, and with some good reason, of the Cannes Film Festival as the last bastion of cinema, a last stand of sorts for the celebration of the pure art form of film in the age of uncertain digital evolution, of streaming video, YouTube videos, and Netflix. The much-publicized querelle with the latter purveyor of on-demand movies has made the Croisette ground zero for a showdown between digital innovators and those who think film should be inextricably tied to its traditions (and its theatrical releases).

What brings silence to the utter frenzy of the famous Palais des Festivals red carpet steps? The sight of 82 actresses and industry women marching up the stairs and then standing in solidarity en masse to bring attention to the disparity to the role of women at the legendary festival since its inception in 1946. Symbolically, 82 women gathered to make a point: this is the number of female directors who have been chosen for the main competition, in contrast to the 1,688 male counterparts in the same time period.

Who cares who wore what on the Cannes red carpet! Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of our industry says otherwise.   Women in film - directors, writers, producers, actors - joined forces with the filmmakers responsible for in-competition entry Girls of the Sun  - to make a stand about representation, inclusion, and justice.

Almost halfway there, Cannes 2018 has a mild, steady vibe. Women may be minority on the competition slate but, from juries to new projects, they have been ruling this 71st edition.

There are four master classes on the Cannes schedule this year, including talks by film icons John Travolta, Christopher Nolan and Gary Oldman. To start, Ryan Coogler kicked things off with an intimate, free-flowing and wide-ranging two-hour conversation with Elvis Mitchell in front of a packed Salle Buñuel.

On this year’s Cannes red carpet the mini had disappeared, but on Thursday it returned. Up-dos continued to trend.

Paris, May 1968, mass protests, street battles and nationwide strikes, a new revolution is on its way, this time, not only a political but social and cultural one.  Intellectuals, students and manual workers took the streets engulfing the country by a social upheaval.

Day two: the weather held, Critics' Week began, and a political statement erupted on the red carpet around the Russian film Leto. A sidebar of drama roiled the Croisette - the seemingly never-ending dispute over the rights of Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, scheduled to close the festival on May 19.