Festivals

Two episodes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young premiered on the big screen of the Grand Theatre Lumière in Cannes this year. The neo-noir thriller features Miles Teller as an LA cop and John Hawkes as a war veteran who take justice into their own hands and eliminate all they see that is bad.

“Once they adopt you it’s forever,” quipped Pedro Almodóvar during his press conference about the affection shown him by audiences here. “No public is as loyal as the French.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) awarded Help Refugees, a nonprofit organization which provides humanitarian aid to, and advocacy for, refugees around the world, a $500,000 grant at the 2019 Festival de Cannes at their annual philanthropic celebration at Nikki Beach, held in association with Participant Media, located at the center of the Croisette. Helen Mirren presented the grant to Help Refugees on behalf of the HFPA, which will go toward the organization’s pioneering mission of providing humanitarian aid with minimal overhead and maximum impact.

“I never felt like I couldn’t do anything because of my gender,” says Nadine Labaki, one of the women featured in Kering’s annual Women in Motion series at the Cannes Film Festival. The series highlights women’s achievements in entertainment and fosters discussions in order to examine what needs to be done to create diversity and equity in the entertainment industry.

Monfermeil, a few miles outside Paris, is one of the historical locations in Victor Hugo’s  “Les Misérables”. In its current incarnation, a banlieue (suburb) of the capital city, it gives the title to French director Ladj Ly’s first feature.