The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival gets under way tonight (Wednesday) with a screening
of Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles apocalyptic thriller Blindness, about
a plague of blindness that sweeps the world. The opening-night film is also competin
g for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or. In recent years, the Cannes jury
-- this year's is headed by Sean Penn -- has made selections for the prize that have
stunned many film journalists and critics in attendance -- but few have complained
about the choices. Writing in today's International Herald Tribune, Joan Dupont
commented that the festival "has a way of pumping up the action and planting a surprise"
during its final days. Nevertheless, the film receiving the most publicity at the fe
stival is George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull., which is being screened on May 18, four days before its worldwide
theatrical bow. In an interview with the Associated Press, producer Frank Marshall said
that Cannes provides "the perfect launching pad, because we can bring the whole world
there." Meanwhile, today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times warns that along
with the movie world's glitterati the festival sees a swarm of criminals arrive
in town each year, although the town actively attempts to play down the annual crime
spike. Some victims told the newspaper that they were encouraged by their hotels
not to speak publicly about their losses. Emilie George, managing director of France's
Memento films, charged that there is an effort afoot "to stifle all sense of any criminal
doings during the festival in order to protect its image." But Nikki Parker, who
is in the business of protecting images as head of international publicity for PR
firm Rogers & Cowan, told the Times that she has been robbed -- twice -- at
the festival by cat burglars. Even A.O. Scott, the New York Times film critic,
said that he was robbed while he slept in his hotel room by burglars who took his
wallet and his principal tool of the trade, his laptop computer.
14/05/2008
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