Festivals

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.

Two-time nominee and Golden Globe winner Asghar Farhadi is an accomplished cinematic storyteller whose intimate films often revolve around the slow burn of inexorable emotional turmoil. His movies are triumphs of economy whose strength lies precisely in their narrative restraint, and they have garnered worldwide acclaim, not least the jury and screenwriting prizes previously won here in Cannes.

Showcasing films outside the mainstream and connecting indie filmmakers is part of the mission of the IndieLisboa International Film Festival, which held its 15th edition this year in Lisbon, Portugal. Nuno Sena, one of the three festival directors, is very happy how it went: “The most remarkable achievement of this year's festival was the increase in audience numbers.

And we're off…. Hours before the opening ceremony and the screening of Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish language Todos lo saben, starring the high voltage husband-and-wife team of Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, the Competition Jury press conference signaled the 71st Cannes Film Festival is officially underway.

The 71st Cannes Film Festival begins under the pressure from assorted and interesting forces: the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, which put women’s rights front and center in the entertainment industry; the clash between French distributors and streaming platforms, especially Netflix; and the growing disenchantment from major studios and independents with the cost, the length, the timing and the peculiarities of the festival. At a last-minute, unscheduled press conference on the eve of the festival, Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux handed out #MeToo flyers to participants, announced a hotline – a phone number an email address – to allow attendees to reach out and denounce instances of harassment.