Festivals

Despite the rain, the 56th Monte-Carlo Television Festival finished in glitter and glamour with the presence of many celebrities of the small screen such as Golden Globe nominee Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) or Marcia Gay Harden (Black Code) and Golden Globe winner Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent).  For over a half-century the festival has focused exclusively on television, with screenings, panels and q&a sessions, many if them open to the public.

As television entertainment claims an ever more prominent global role, producing the kind of character-driven storylines that film studios have largely abandoned in favor of tentpole movies, festivals devoted to the medium are also becoming more prominent. HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, the Festival’s Honorary President, and HSH Princess Charlene officially opened the 56th Monte-Carlo Television Festival at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on June 12th 2016.

Ken Loach, a Cannes veteran since 1979, an a Palme D’Or winner in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes the Barley did it again – his I, Daniel Blake took the top prize at the 69th Cannes Film Festival. The drama about a working class family coping with the infernal labyrinth of social welfare bureaucracy was one of best reviewed and liked at the festival, but the win came as a surprise nonetheless.

We met Danish director and writer Nicolas Winding Refn on the set of his new film, the horror-thriller The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning and Keanu Reeves. It's the story of an aspiring model Jesse (Fanning) who moves to Los Angeles, when her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

The winners of the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival were announced -in a mix of languages: French, English and even Japanese-- in a short ceremony at the Debussy Theater on Saturday evening, the penultimate night of the festival. The members of the jury presented the awards to an eclectic range of international films.