Cannes at Home: Masturbation, Motherhood and Melodrama

by Cláudio Alves

Long before he was selected for the Cannes Main Competition, Rodrigo Sorogoyen became an Oscar nominee with his MOTHER short film.

The race for the Palme is heating up… is what you’d assume we’d be saying by the time half the Main Competition had screened. However, this year isn’t like most years at Cannes. Or maybe, it’s an edition where issues that have prevailed for years are finally becoming too noticeable to politely ignore. Thierry Frémaux’s favorite auteurs aren’t bringing it, and most of the biggest critical darlings are showing in parallel sections – think La Gradiva, Kurosawa’s first jidaigeki, Clarissa’s transposition of Mrs. Dalloway to Nigeria and various others. Indeed, Hirokazu Koreeda is receiving the worst reviews of his illustrious career for Sheep in the Box, while Rodrigo Sorogoyen can’t stop drawing depreciative Sentimental Value comparisons because of his The Beloved. Finally, James Gray’s Paper Tiger is proving divisive, which is business as usual for the American auteur.

With those cineastes in mind, let’s revisit Koreeda’s Air Doll about a sex doll magically come to life, Sorogoyen’s agonizing Mother, and one of Gray’s best films, the fraternal melodrama We Own the Night…

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It's 'Armageddon Time' (...and other new releases)

by Nathaniel R

Jaylin Webb and Banks Repata in ARMAGEDDON TIME

Though Hollywood blockbuster lovers are waiting until a week from today for their holiday movie season to kick off with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever the rest of us have plenty to enjoy in theaters right now since "Prestige Movie Season" began a few weeks back. If you haven't caught up with The Banshees of Inisherin, TÁR, Till, Triangle of Sadness, and The Woman King yet, this is the weekend to do it since everything (well, maybe not Banshees) will lose screens to the Wakandans on November 11th. Tick tock tick tock. Get to the movies!

There's other even newer stuff this weekend, too...

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Cannes at Home: Day 3 – Innocence Lost

by Cláudio Alves

New films by James Gray and Jerzy Skolimowski have hit the Croisette, leading to many a Belfast mention and plenty of donkey talk. Armageddon Time, a memoirist exercise that purports to evoke Gray's childhood, has been met with mixed reactions, including here at The Film Experience. However, the consensus leans towards warmth, and, as a longtime James Gray devotee, I couldn't be more excited. After all, nearly every film the man directed faced some negative critiques, yet I love most of them regardless. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about Jerzy Skolimowski. His filmography has been a dependable source of disappointments. By reading some reviews (including Elisa's), his new project, EO, sounds like the cynical bastard child of War Horse and Au Hasard Balthasar. That being said, I doubt the Bressonian comparison will do EO any favors.

For Cannes at Home, today's topics are the film that should have won James Gray the Palme d'Or and Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End…

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Cannes Diary #3: A stubborn wife, a great grandpa and... a donkey?

by Elisa Giudici

While I was on screening duty, Hollywood glamour was on shift-change with Tom Cruise out and Julia Roberts in. Roberts was here to hand the Chopard Awards to new promises of world cinema (Jack Lowden and Sheila Atim) and to enjoy a marvelous party, as I've heard from friends that witnessed it firsthand. But as for the movies, I am happy to report that on the second day of the competition (the third since opening nightl) we already have a soon-to-be infamous scene with the immense Isabelle Huppert as a momentary protagonist. Some weird festival stuff is coming, brace yourself...

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Drive My Cannes: The New Competition Lineup!

Direct from France, please welcome longtime reader / first time contributor Arnaud Trouvé to talk about the Cannes festival and share the new lineup... uPDATE 04/23: new additions indicated below under red headlines

Ruben Östlund's "Triangle of Sadness" © SF Studios

by Arnaud Trouvé

My first encounter with the Cannes Film Festival was in 1998, when Roberto Benigni kissed Martin Scorsese’s feet after winning the Grand Prix for Life is Beautiful (which he mistakenly took for the Palme d’Or). Cannes ceremonies are always broadcast live on French TV and my interest grew rapidly over the years. Flash-forward to 2009: the Paris visual effects company I’m working for had to deliver over a hundred shots for an upcoming production destined for the Croisette. "It has to be ready for Cannes," was the motto as we worked on a very tight schedule. This production happened to be Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void and we managed to screen it in Competition at the last minute, with no opening or closing credits!

A decade later, the announcement of the Cannes lineup is still an annual event for cinephiles around the world. And after a bonkers ceremony in the summer of 2021 that saw the victory of Titane, the festival is ready to get back to its usual May slot. Let’s have a look at its anticipated official selection unveiled today by artistic director Thierry Frémaux...

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