Festivals

The sun came out and smiled: Cannes was dominated by women, even if for a moment. As the 69th edition of the festival comes to a pivot point - the halfway mark, the critical first weekend when trends and favorites begin to pop up - one title was on everybody's lips: American Honey, a long (162 minutes), dazzling exploration of millenial angst on the roads of America, served straight up from the mind of director Andrea Arnold, a two-twice Jury Prize winner in Cannes.

One of the great sidebars in Cannes is the Classics selection, a favorite of cinephiles and a tribute to the history of cinema and the festival. This year fans can feast their eyes on great movies from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Féminin, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Milos Forman’s Valmont.

Cannes begs the question: what to do with your hair when the ocean is a seashell throw away? To add to the challenge, opening day at Cannes produced showers mere hours before the opening gala. For the most part hair was worn in a ‘just up from the beach’ way.

Roald Dahl stories have inspired groundbreaking films, both live action (Witches, Matilda) and animated  (Fantastic Mr. Fox, James and the Giant Peach).

Like the Supreme Court, Cannes juries are composed of nine experts, although by the shroud of secrecy that surrounds their proceedings sometimes they can appear more like a sequestered jury than a festival panel. This years judges are Arnaud Desplechin, Kirsten Dunst, Valeria Golino, Mads Mikkelsen, László Nemes, Vanessa Paradis, Katayoon Shahabi and Donald Sutherland headed by Aussie, Golden Globe nominated director George Miller who was on the Croisette last year with his Mad Max: Fury Road.

By the time the weekend comes along, the transfiguration of Cannes is complete. Hardline cinephiles don't like to hear it, but by then the lovely town has indeed become a mini-Hollywood with even more expensive food; in other words, a place where someone dressed as an enormous, fluffy creature can walk around and nobody would bat an eyelash - but photographers will swarm to take his/her picture.

Parties are Cannes’ unique language, and the HFPA speaks it very well – and with a purpose. On Friday, May 13, the Association threw a cocktail party at the glamorous Nikki Beach of the Carlton Hotel, on the Croisette, to benefit and honor FilmAid International.

Soko and Lily Rose Depp star in the true story of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan, women whose dancing reverberates 100 years on. The fascinating and little known story of Loïe Fuller, a young woman who improbably left the wilds of the American frontier to become a dancer in turn-of-the-century New York and ultimately a star of the Paris opera, makes for a fascinating film story.

Director Cristi Puiu, one of the leaders of the Romanian New Wave, is in main competition for the first time at the 2016 Cannes Film Fest.   But he is not a new presence at this prestigious event.

Cannes opened to rain filled skies and plenty of star power.