Another edition of The Cannes Film Festival is ready to take off next month. The madness has begun?mails flooding the inbox, the number of flight tickets to Nice shooting up, the red carpet getting brushed, hotels and apartments getting packed, tariff cards of beach and yacht companies for party bookings being flogged, PR companies building stories and disseminating press releases, trade magazines running out of advertorial space, and every pillar, pole and bare wall along The Croisette and outside The Palais getting devoured by movie adverts.
After 61 years, the little town of Cannes can safely call itself a veteran at prepping itself for what is the biggest, busiest and most glamorous trade event of the year for the movie industry. Really, it?s no less than a circus, with all of us, playing the quintessential clowns, fooling around at soirees, fooling the trade or getting fooled. That Cannes inherently loves cinema or has been made to love cinema over the years is evident in the queues to see new movies and the crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the stars outside their hotels or to see them walk down the red carpet.
According to the Festival De Cannes President Gilles Jacob, ?A film festival is characterised as much by the films it accepts as the films it refuses.? This explains the obvious presence of the veterans, big boys and the US presence in the recent announcement of the 2008 competition line-up, which includes highly anticipated projects like Client Eastwood?s The Changeling, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne?s Le Silence De Lorna, Atom Egoyan?s Adoration, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas? Linha de Passe and Wim Wenders? romantic thriller The Palermo Shooting. Steven Soderbergh will also bring his four-hour (you read it right!) biopic about the Latin-American revolutionary Che Guevara to the competition.
Asian and eastern European films, which are strongly represented in the market, are again missing from the competition category. Bollywood will be busy selling its wares in the mandi but still looking for a flag bearer?a figure like Wong Kar Wai perhaps, who can give Indian cinema more credibility than the song-and-dance perception it has (after all these years) in the minds of the international film community.
Alongside the announcement of this year?s line-up comes the revelation that there will actually be fewer films showing and that the opening and closing titles remain shrouded in mystery. What is clear, however, is that Steven Spielberg?s keenly awaited
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will have a grand premiere on May 18, but not open the festival, as reported earlier.
Stay tuned for updates on Cannes in the next column.
IPL killing Bollywood?
Is Bollywood killing Bollywood? That?s what trade insiders have been insisting. Cricket fans (an uncountable number) are busy watching the star-backed IPL matches in the cosy confines of their living rooms, leaving the recent releases to flounder at the box-office.
The much-awaited Tashan, which bagged a 15 certificate from the BBFC, might just be another unfortunate casualty of the IPL mania. Let?s see if the on-screen action can outdo the on-field action, as the games promise to hot up with every passing day.
The author has a breadth of experience in film production, marketing and distribution.
At present, he heads marketing & distribution for the UK & Europe at Studio 18.
He can be reached at garg.tan@gmail.com