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    Cannes Film Festival: When the Stars Come, a Traverso Is There for Pictures

    Gilles Traverso is the third in a line of photographers from his family to capture the film elite every year of the Cannes Film Festival.When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added, “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”Gilles Traverso is the latest of three generations of photographers from his family who have captured the stars and events at Cannes. This year’s festival will be his 49th.François Ollivier for The New York TimesThe Traverso family, originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Thierry Klifa on His Fascination With ‘The Richest Woman in the World’

    The director Thierry Klifa discusses his new film, “The Richest Woman in the World,” based on the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt.The world’s richest woman falls under the spell of a younger man. In the space of several years, she gives him more than $1 billion in cash, annuities and works of art — until her daughter steps in and reveals all in what turns into an international scandal.That’s the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal, and her longtime friend and confidant, the author and photographer François-Marie Banier. A fictionalized version of the saga — “The Richest Woman in the World,” starring Isabelle Huppert — will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24.A disclaimer at the movie’s start says it is “very loosely” inspired by real-life events and contains elements of “pure fiction,” including private exchanges between family members. And the director Thierry Klifa has made sure to change all the names. Yet the movie still hews very closely to the actual events (as recounted in a three-part documentary available on Netflix, “The Billionaire, the Butler, and the Boyfriend.”)Admittedly, Huppert looks nothing like the real-life Madame Bettencourt, who was recognizable by her heavily lacquered coiffure and strictly tailored suits. In the movie, Huppert has silky shoulder-length hair and a much younger look. She comes across as a playful Parisienne who is seduced by the flamboyant Fantin (the fictionalized version of Banier) and allows him to change everything: her clothes, her art collection, her life.In a recent video interview, Klifa discussed the scandal, why he became interested in it, and why he chose Huppert. The conversation, translated from French, has been edited and condensed.The director Thierry Klifa was “instantly fascinated” by the real-life story of the French billionaire who gave away part of her fortune to a younger man.Francois DourlenWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    At the Cannes Film Festival, These Screenings Are on the Beach

    Cinéma de la Plage is the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings on the beach and under the stars.On a warm afternoon in late April, La Croisette hummed with life. Families pushed strollers along the boardwalk, children trailed behind with dripping ice cream cones, and tourists posed for selfies silhouetted against the Mediterranean. At Plage Macé, a centrally-located public beach, people tanned, played volleyball and went for a dip.For the next two weeks, Plage Macé has been transformed into an outdoor theater, outfitted with a massive movie screen — nearly 80 feet by 20 feet — and an elaborate sound system, with 600 deck chairs available on a first-come-first-served basis.This is Cinéma de la Plage, the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings. At a film festival notorious for its exclusivity, this is one event where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are — or how they are dressed.“Cinéma de la Plage is evidence that the Cannes Film Festival never forgets it has to remain a cultural and popular event,” Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s artistic director, explained in an email.Camilla Amelotti works at a children’s attraction, Les P’tits Bateaux (The Li’l Boats), directly in front of Plage Macé. In between selling souvenir magnets and handing out remote controls for miniature yachts, she described Cinéma de la Plage as an accessible alternative to the festival’s indoor screenings, especially for film-loving locals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Actress Anamaria Vartolomei Brings a Fearless Streak to Her Roles

    The actress’s latest film, “Adam’s Interest,” will open the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.Anamaria Vartolomei began her film career when she was 12 opposite Isabelle Huppert in a film about a controversial photographer and her daughter. And in the past few years, Vartolomei, now 26, has blazed through a slate so ambitious that it resembles one of Huppert’s typically prolific runs — each film different from the last.The Romanian-born actress’s recent rise began with a heartbreaking starring role in “Happening” as a French university student in the 1960s who seeks an abortion. It won the Golden Lion for best film at the 2021 Venice Film Festival — where the director Bong Joon Ho was the head of the jury. Bong cast Vartolomei in the dystopian film “Mickey 17” as a shrewd shipmate of Robert Pattinson’s repeatedly replicated drone.By the time “Mickey 17” came out earlier this year, she’d projected a mesmerizing mystique in the French blockbuster “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Her fearless streak was also recently on display in “Being Maria,” in which she plays the actress Maria Schneider, star of “Last Tango in Paris,” and “The Empire,” a loopy intergalactic yarn set in rural France.Her latest movie, “Adam’s Interest,” opens the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24. Vartolomei plays a mother who risks losing custody of her child after he is hospitalized. In a video interview — seated beneath a wall of pictures featuring “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Breathless” and “Scarface” — she explained why the film’s raw realism appealed to her and how it was achieved. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.In your career, you tend to choose characters who have limited power or autonomy. But they do what they can with what they have.Yeah, I love this. It speaks to me personally, and I think it speaks to everyone in a way. I mean, freedom belongs to us, but it’s hard to admit that we have power over it. Sometimes we feel like we depend on others’ perspectives regarding our freedom. You think about pleasing others, and you forget what you really want. I like characters that know they want something, but they don’t really know how to obtain it. They finally find a way because if they find their truth, they will find peace.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Masahiro Shinoda, Leading Light of Japan’s New Wave Cinema, Dies at 94

    His films tapped into the fantasies of disgruntled youth by embracing brazen sexuality and countercultural politics. But unlike his peers, he did not shun tradition.Masahiro Shinoda, a leading director of the postwar Japanese New Wave whose films, notably “Pale Flower” and “Double Suicide,” fused pictorial beauty and fetishistic violence, died on March 25. He was 94.His production company, Hyogensha, said in a statement that the cause was pneumonia. It did not say where he died.In the 1960s and ’70s, Japanese New Wave cinema, like its French predecessor, tapped into the fantasies of disgruntled youth by embracing brazen sexuality and countercultural politics, with a tinge of nihilism. But unlike his peers, Mr. Shinoda refused to shun tradition. Instead, he used feudal-era theatrical forms like Noh, Bunraku and Kabuki to recount how cycles of violence have persisted since imperial Japan. His films were wrought with poetic imagery — hooded puppeteers, striking femmes fatales (including his wife, the actress Shima Iwashita) — but for all their sensuality, they espoused the idea that nothing really matters.“Culture is nothing but the expression of violence,” Mr. Shinoda said in an interview with Joan Mellen for her book “Voices From the Japanese Cinema” (1975), adding that “human tenderness is unthinkable without violence.”From left, Ryo Ikebe, Mariko Kaga and Takashi Fujiki in “Pale Flower” (1964), Mr. Shinoda’s best-known film.ShochikuWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cannes Film Festival Announces Lineup, Including Scarlett Johansson and Wes Anderson

    A sidebar to the competition will feature Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut.Movies directed by Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster are among 19 films that will compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the event’s organizers announced at a news conference on Thursday.The festival’s 78th edition, which opens May 13 and runs through May 24, will also feature the premiere of “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” the eighth movie in the action series starring Tom Cruise, playing in an out-of-competition spot.Linklater’s movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless,” a seminal picture in the French New Wave film movement.Richard Linklater at the Berlin Film Festival in February. His “Nouvelle Vague,” playing in competition at Cannes, is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless.”Christopher Neundorf/EPA, via ShutterstockOther movies by American directors appearing in competition are Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” starring Benicio Del Toro as an eccentric businessman; Aster’s “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and focused on a small-town election; and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” about an art heist.Julia Ducournau, whose movie “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021, will return to the competition with “Alpha”; and Joachim Trier, who directed “The Worst Person in the World,” a breakout hit that same year, will present a new film, “Sentimental Value.”In recent years, the Cannes competition has premiered a host of movies that have gone on to dominate award season. Last year’s lineup included Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” and Sean Baker’s “Anora” — the last of which won the Palme d’Or and this year’s Academy Award for best picture.A jury led by the French actor Juliette Binoche will announce the winner at a ceremony on May 24.Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, which will feature in the competition’s sidebar, is called “Eleanor the Great.”Mario Anzuoni/ReutersOutside the main competition, the sidebar section, known as Un Certain Regard, features the directorial debuts of two prominent actors: Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great,” in which a woman in her 90s moves to New York and tries to start life afresh; and Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin,” a drama about a homeless person.Aside from the main competition and Un Certain Regard, the festival also has special screenings, out-of-competition slots and a section called Cannes Premiere. Some notable movies playing in those categories include “Private View,” directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and starring Jodie Foster in her first French-language role for over two decades; “Stories of Surrender,” based on Bono’s acclaimed one-man stage show; and “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” by the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.The honorary Palme d’Or, given each year to acknowledge a contribution to cinema, will go to Robert De Niro. The actor performed the lead in two past Palme d’Or winners: Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which won the main prize in 1976; and Roland Joffé’s “The Mission,” which triumphed in 1986. More

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    Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater to Compete at Cannes Film Festival

    A sidebar to the competition will feature Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut.Movies directed by Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster are among 19 films that will compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the event’s organizers announced at a news conference on Thursday.The festival’s 78th edition, which opens May 13 and runs through May 24, will also feature the premiere of “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” the eighth movie in the action series starring Tom Cruise, playing in an out-of-competition spot.Linklater’s movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless,” a seminal picture in the French New Wave film movement.Richard Linklater at the Berlin Film Festival in February. His “Nouvelle Vague,” playing in competition at Cannes, is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless.”Christopher Neundorf/EPA, via ShutterstockOther movies by American directors appearing in competition are Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” starring Benicio Del Toro as an eccentric businessman; Aster’s “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and focused on a small-town election; and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” about an art heist.Julia Ducournau, whose movie “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021, will return to the competition with “Alpha”; and Joachim Trier, who directed “The Worst Person in the World,” a breakout hit that same year, will present a new film, “Sentimental Value.”In recent years, the Cannes competition has premiered a host of movies that have gone on to dominate award season. Last year’s lineup included Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” and Sean Baker’s “Anora” — the last of which won the Palme d’Or and this year’s Academy Award for best picture.A jury led by the French actor Juliette Binoche will announce the winner at a ceremony on May 24.Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, which will feature in the competition’s sidebar, is called “Eleanor the Great.”Mario Anzuoni/ReutersOutside the main competition, the sidebar section, known as Un Certain Regard, features the directorial debuts of two prominent actors: Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great,” in which a woman in her 90s moves to New York and tries to start life afresh; and Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin,” a drama about a homeless person.Aside from the main competition and Un Certain Regard, the festival also has special screenings, out-of-competition slots and a section called Cannes Premiere. Some notable movies playing in those categories include “Private View,” directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and starring Jodie Foster in her first French-language role for over two decades; “Stories of Surrender,” based on Bono’s acclaimed one-man stage show; and “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” by the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.The honorary Palme d’Or, given each year to acknowledge a contribution to cinema, will go to Robert De Niro. The actor performed the lead in two past Palme d’Or winners: Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which won the main prize in 1976; and Roland Joffé’s “The Mission,” which triumphed in 1986. More

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    Souleymane Cissé, Celebrated Malian Filmmaker, Dies at 84

    He won multiple awards during his 50-year career, including the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and spent his life championing African cinema.Souleymane Cissé, an award-winning writer and director who became the first Black African filmmaker to win the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, died on Wednesday in Bamako, Mali. He was 84.His death was confirmed by François Margolin, a French film producer and a close friend of Mr. Cissé’s.Mr. Cissé had just appeared at a news conference on Wednesday morning to present two prizes ahead of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, known as Fespaco, where he had been set to head the jury.After the news conference — where he was “talking and joking” — Mr. Cissé went to take a nap and didn’t wake up, Mr. Margolin said.Mr. Cissé was catapulted to worldwide fame with the release in 1987 of “Yeelen” (“Light” in his native Bambara). The film won the jury prize at Cannes and was nominated as the best foreign film in the 1989 Spirit Awards. The director Martin Scorsese called the film “one of the great revelatory experiences of my moviegoing life.”Mr. Cissé had been energetic until the end of his life, Mr. Margolin said, working and traveling around the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More