Cannes Film Festival | Cannes 2011 Special

Monday, 28th February 2011

The Skin That I Inhabit, directed by Pedro Almodovar and a strong possible for Cannes 2011.

Cannes 2011 preview: who's gonna be there? - part one

There is a Cannes Film Festival every year and 2011 isn't going to be any different, no matter how hard it tries to pretend that it's special. You're not, 2011! Just another year, like the last, same as the next. Another Year, as it happens, was one of very few gems to emerge from last year's Cannes (seamless, I know), although hopes are high that this festival's crop can dazzle. But which films are likely to feature?

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Friday, 28th January 2011

Biutiful

Alejandro Iňárritu (pictured), director of 21 Grams and Babel, is back with Biutiful, a Barcelona-based tragic drama starring Javier Bardem. It's a study in ugliness that makes grim viewing, says Emma Rowley, but Bardem's portrayal of a man at odds with himself is a thing of beauty.

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Tuesday, 18th January 2011

On DVD: Certified Copy

It's a Tuscany-set love story with a twist. Juliette Binoche and William Shimell star in the first film from Abbas Kiarostami to be filmed outside of his native Iran. Emma Rowley admires the view but still can't wait to leave.

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Friday, 5th November 2010

Another Year

Cannes (Official Selection) - Divided into four seasons, Mike Leigh's latest film recounts the events in the lives of an ordinary couple, their friends and family over the course of a year. Emma Rowley is drawn into an absorbing tragicomedy that is characteristic of the best of the director's work.

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Tuesday, 21st September 2010

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Cannes (Out of Competition) – Oliver Stone’s follow-up to his 1980s-set morality tale is a film that cleverly reflects the Wall Street of the recent financial crisis. Overcoming some doubts about the sequel’s curious title, Emma Rowley finds herself glad to catch up with Gordon Gekko again.

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Monday, 20th September 2010

On DVD: Trash Humpers

Cannes - On one level, Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers is precisely the picture suggested by the title - it is about a quartet of old folks who hump trash. Hold on, hump trash? Yup, they grind their pelvic areas against refuse bins, in a state of sexual excitement. Gee, that sounds really rather weird. Listen buddy, says Paul Martin, you haven't heard the half of it.

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Tuesday, 8th June 2010

Mike Leigh's Another Year, one of the highlights of the Cannes Film Festival 2010.

Indie Movies Online at the Cannes Film Festival 2010 – reviews round-up

Was it really just a fortnight ago that we were mournfully cramming our sweat-stained clothes into our suitcases as we prepared to depart Cannes? Yes. Yes, it was. So, with memories of the Cannes Film Festival 2010 fast receding into the distance, allow us to take this opportunity to provide a neat 'n' tidy round-up of all the scores we dished out to the movies we caught at Cannes this year.

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The Tree

(Cannes – Out of Competition) – Julie Bertuccelli’s adaptation of the novel Our Father Who Art in The Tree closed the Cannes Film Festival on a gently luminous note. Emma Rowley winds down in the Queensland countryside.

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Wednesday, 2nd June 2010

Exodus: Burnt by the Sun 2

Cannes (Official Selection) – Nikita Mikhalkov's 1994 Burnt by the Sun won both Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards and the Grand Prix at Cannes. Some fifteen years later, Mikhalkov is back with a follow-up film in which he reprises his role as General Kotov. But, asks Emma Rowley, was it worth the wait?

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Cannes double: La Nostra Vita and Life, Above All

Cannes (Official Selection) – La Nostra Vita and (Un Certain Regard) – Life, Above All. Two very different films, in two different competitions, with one thing in common: a phenomenal central performance in each. Emma Rowley gives a standing ovation to Elio Germano and Khomotso Manyaka.

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Friday, 28th May 2010

Lights Out

Cannes (Un Certain Regard) - A discovered corpse provides the starting point for this Sonic Youth-soundtracked teen mystery. Paul Martin plays amateur sleuth.

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Wednesday, 26th May 2010

Javier Bardem and Juliette Binoche accept their awards.

Our final Cannes vidcast

Cannes Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday evening with its glitzy awards presentation and the final press conferences. In our last vidcast of the festival, we give our reactions to the prize winners and provide a lickety-split round-up of all the films we saw in the main competitions. Check it out, below.

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Outside the Law

Cannes (Official Selection) – Controversy and even a degree of chaos come to Cannes 2010, as director Rachid Bouchareb uses France's colonial past in North Africa as the bedrock on which to build an expansive thriller, and upsets the French nationalists in the process. Paul Martin tries to find an inside line on all the hullabaloo.

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Tuesday, 25th May 2010

Uncle Boonmee director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Interview with Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Saturday afternoon in Cannes, and myself and a few colleagues from the international film press have been granted the opportunity to spend some time with Thai directer Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the man who just over 24 hours later would be receiving the 2010 Palme d'Or from Charlotte Gainsbourg for his reincarnation fable, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

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Sunday, 23rd May 2010

Parting shots

12 days of competition, 23 movies seen, approximately 24,600 words written (and counting). Two days spent watching films, a further full day expended queuing to see those films. Fuelled by an unending stream of tea and pastries, constantly besieged by mosquitoes. That was my Cannes Film Festival 2010, my first visit to the legendary event, and here a few final thoughts about the whole shebang.

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