Views of Cannes and Festival Award
From May 13 to 24, international film stars will take over the glamorous Mediterranean resort where they will meet in the prestigious Palais du Festival but mainly in lavish parties in the luxurious hotels .
It all started in 1946, and the first selection included Billy Wilder’s “Lost Weekend”, David Lean’s “Brief Encounter”, Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome Open City”, George Cukor’s “Gaslight”, Walt Disney’s “Make Mine Music”, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious”, and Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast”.
This year’s jury will be headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert, only the 4th woman to hold the presidency for over 6 decades.
Isabelle Huppert holding the Cannes Festival Palm Award
Here is the official selection of the movies in competition:
- “A prophet”, France, Jacques Audiard
- “Agora”, Spain, Alejandro Amenabar
- “Antichrist”, Sweden/ Denmark/ France / Italy, Lars Von Trier
- “Bright Stars”, Australia, Jane Campion
- “Broken Embrace”, Spain, Pedro Almodovar
- “Enter the void”, France, Gaspar Noe
- “Face”, France/ Taiwan/ Netherlands/ Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang
- “Fishtank”, UK/ Netherlands, Andrea Arnold
- “In the beginning”, France, Xavier Giannoli
- “Inglorious Basterds”, USA, Quentin Tarantino
- “Kinatay”, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
- “Les herbes folles”, France/ Italy, Alain Resnais
- “Looking for Eric”, UK/ France/ Belgium/ Italy, Ken Loach
- “Maps of the sound of Tokyo”, Spain, Isabel Coixet
- “Spring Fever”, China/ France, Lou Ye
- “Taking Woodstock”, USA, Ang Lee
- “The times that remains”, Israel/ France/ Belgium/ Italy, Elia Suleiman
- “The whit ribbon”, Germany/ Austria/ France, Michael Haneke
- “Thirst”, South Korea, Park Chan-Wook
- “Vengeance”, Hong Kong France/ USA, Johnnie To
- “Vincere’, Italy / France, Marco Bellochio
Pixar 3-D movie UP will open the festival on May 13th, an unusual event as it will be the first time an animated movie will be shown for the opening. The results will be anounced in the evening of May 24th.
Video introducing the 2009 festival/ Film samples /In French with some English
Jackie Grandchamps obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in Belgium, and then moved to the U.S. in 1995 to conduct cancer research at Stanford University in California. Her heart has always been in travel however, and she turned her passion into a full time job in 2003 when she launched her travel business, French Escapade offering an authentic travel experience to women.
She says, “I wanted to make my dream come true: sharing my love of traveling and giving people the opportunity to really experience a different culture. Instead of the traditional ‘tourist’ sightseeing trip to France, I wanted to immerse very small groups of women in the culture, let them meet locals, eat authentic cuisine and ‘live’ an authentic experience. That’s how French Escapade was born.”
