Weinstein: "(Cannes) Is The Most Far-Reaching, Important Festival In The World



(image via thereeler)



(image via reuters)

Steven Spielberg, mirabile dictu, is doing Cannes. Beginning tomorrow, A-List directors, a Bollywood contingent and producers will be mixing with the likes of obscure European art house directors and incongruous celebrities like Madonna and documentary subject Mike Tyson (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment) at the world's biggest film festival. Steven Soderbergh, who is no stranger to the Palme D'Or, has a two-part, four-and-a-half hour epic about Che Guevara that is getting much buzz. From the International Herald Tribune:

"Rounding up a lot of the usual suspects, the Cannes Film Festival presents a lineup from an illustrious if somewhat predictable gang of regulars, among them Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Woody Allen, Atom Egoyan and Wim Wenders.

"Then there's Steven Spielberg — who's not quite a newcomer, since he's been at Cannes before. But the festival's centerpiece, 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,' marks the director's first time at Cannes since the 1980s, when he showed 'The Color Purple' and 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' here.

"... Eastwood returns with 'Changeling,' a child-abduction drama starring Jolie, while Soderbergh is showing 'Che,' his two-part epic on revolutionary Che Guevara, featuring Benicio Del Toro. Wenders offers 'Palermo Shooting,' a thriller about a photographer pursued by a mysterious gunman, and Egoyan presents 'Adoration,' centered on a youth who reinvents himself in cyberspace.

"... With international press mobbing the French Riviera resort, there is no better spotlight than Cannes for a film to gain global attention, said Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is premiering Allen's romantic drama 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' with Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz.

"'Cannes is a grand stage,' said Weinstein, whose past top prize winners at the festival include 'Pulp Fiction,' 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and Soderbergh's 'sex, lies and videotape.' 'You have the Oscars, which are American-centric, and the world-centric place is Cannes. It's the most far-reaching, important festival in the world and creates a worldwide image for films you're launching there.'"

"Blindness," which opens the festival, is described, by Sheigh Crabtree of the Los Angeles Times (via Indiewire) as "a 24-frames-per-second allegory about the fragile state of civil society and the human spirit." The festival ends on May 25 when the Palme d'Or for best film is awarded.