Cannes 2022

As part of its sponsorship at this year’s American Pavilion at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (“HFPA”) announced one of its panels will feature all women in focusing on “Global Voices: Empowering Women Behind the Lens” on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at 1:00 PM (local time). “This year we assembled a dynamic panel featuring four women who are showing their work at Cannes for the first time.

One of the hottest Hollywood couples - recently divorced Natalie Wood and rising star Warren Beatty - arrive in Cannes to promote Beatty's sultry drama All Fall Down. Directed by John Frankenheimer, Beatty starred as a handsome drifter who lives off the women he easily seduces.

Two years before making this appearance in Cannes for the first time, David Bowie had been his grand entrance in cinema, starring Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (he was Thomas Jerome Newton, the man who fell to Earth). Now, two years later, Bowie - and a team very easy on the eyes - was in Cannes to promote the David Hemmings-directed Just a Gigolo, the tale of a World War I hero who becomes a gigolo in Berlin, under the watching eye of a madam played by Marlene Dietrich.

As part of its sponsorship at this year’s American Pavilion at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (“HFPA”) announced one of its panels will feature directors making their directorial debuts with premieres of their films at the festival focusing on “Cannes First Time: Conversation” on Monday, May 23, 2022, at 2:00 PM (local time). “One of the greatest moments for any new director is to make their debut at Cannes and this year we have brought together these new directors hailing from new markets bringing some amazing new work to the global stage,” said Helen Hoehne, President of the HFPA.

30 years before the spectacular opening of this year's Cannes Film Festival, Tom Cruise - with then-wife Nicole Kidman - made a more discreet visit to the Croisette. Cruise and Kidman were the stars of the film that close the festival: Far and Away, directed by Ron Howard.

Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning actor, producer, and director, Forest Whitaker was met with a standing ovation at the opening ceremony for the 75th Cannes Film Festival when he received an honorary Palme d’Or lifetime achievement.   He follows such luminaries as Jodie Foster, Jeanne Moreau, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Manoel de Oliveira, and Agnes Varda.

In a year that had Volver, Babel, Pan's Labyrinth, Marie Antoinette, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, The Family Friend (and many more), a superhero movie found its way into the non-competitive selection: X Men 3: The Last Stand. Directed by Brett Ratner while Almodóvar, del Toro, and Coppola walked the red carpet, Marvel filled the super-Hollywood material with its entry for the Summer box office wars, and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Halle Berry (Storm) waltzed for the press contingent outside the Palais.

It seems the importance that Ibero-American cinema has been acquiring in the film industry or on the international festival circuit does not matter. With all the effort applied to this edition of the Cannes International Festival - the in-person return after two years affected by the pandemic - in the end, this film fest, considered among the most important in the world, has pretty much forgotten Ibero-American cinema, again.

The Cannes Film Festival has concluded its Official Selection ahead of next month’s 75th edition. Amongst the movies competing for the Palme d’Or are three Belgian productions: The Eight Mountains / Le Otto Montagne, by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van Groeningen (Beautiful Boy.