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The Communiqué News

Festival de Cannes: The « Rendez-vous with… » are meetings between the artists and the public of the Festival. They make it possible to savvy the vision and thoughts of major artists of our time from all over the world. They offer rare moments of sharing, cinema-loving, transmission and emotion.


Pritish Bagdi

Pic Courtesy: Javier Bardem, Agnès Jaoui, Mads Mikkelsen, Alice Rohrwacher © RR


In the 2022 edition, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, French director, actress and screenwriter Agnès Jaoui, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and Italian director and screenwriter Alice Rohrwacher will meet with audiences.


Javier Bardem Actor - Spain Friday, 27th May at 4:00 pm - Salle Buñuel Born into a family of artists, son of actress Pilar Bardem and nephew of director Juan Antonio Bardem, Javier Bardem is one of the most well-known international actors of his generation. After studying painting at the Escuela de Arte y Oficios and making several appearances on the silver screen, he landed his first major role in 1992 in Jamón, Jamón, a comedy by Bigas Luna that earned him honors and awards. Recognized by the Spanish public in the 1990s, he began an international career in the 2000s with Before Night Falls by Julian Schnabel. He was a member of the Jury of the Festival de Cannes in 2005. He then acted in many successful films, some of which have made a lasting impression on La Croisette: No Country for Old Men (2007, in Competition), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008, Out of Competition) and Biutiful, which offered him a Best Actor Award in 2010. He returns this year to share his film experiences with the Cannes audience, after opening the 2018 Festival with Everybody Knows by Asghar Farhadi, in Competition. Agnès Jaoui Director, actress, screenwriter & singer - France Monday 23rd May at 2:30 pm - Salle Buñuel A multi-hyphenate artist recognized in theater and cinema, Agnès Jaoui invented with the much-missed Jean-Pierre Bacri a style of writing whose Cuisine et dépendances and Family Resemblances were their first successes. They worked with Alain Resnais for Smoking/No Smoking and Same Old Song. In 2000, she directed The Taste of Others, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and received four César awards, including Best Film. She continued with Look at Me, presented in Competition at the Festival de Cannes 2004 and awarded Best Screenplay, then in 2008 with Let's Talk About the Rain, in 2013 with Under the Rainbow and in 2018 with Place publique. She starred in Bruno Podalydès’ film The Sweet Escape and Blandine Lenoir’s I Got Life!. She was a member of the Jury of the Festival de Cannes chaired by Pedro Almodóvar in 2017. In 2021, she directed an episode of season 2 of the unanimously acclaimed series En thérapie, broadcast on French TV on Arte. Agnès Jaoui also has a career as a singer and regularly performs on stage. Mads Mikkelsen Actor - Denmark Thursday, 26th May at 2:30 pm - Salle Buñuel In his 25-year career Mads Mikkelsen has built a solid filmography and a long history with the Festival de Cannes. Born in Denmark, and originally a gymnast and dancer before becoming a stage actor, he made his film debut in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy. He established himself on the international scene with King Arthur (2004) and, especially, his role as the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006). He also performed in Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding (2006), Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2008) and Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair. He starred in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, for which he won the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2012. He also starred in Arnaud des Pallières’ Michael Kohlhaas, presented in Competition in 2013. The following year, he returned to the Festival for a Midnight Screening with the Western The Salvation. Mikkelsen was part of the feature film jury in 2016, presided over by George Miller, before presenting Joe Penna’s Arctic as a Midnight Screening in 2017. In 2020, he collaborated once again with Thomas Vinterberg in Another Round, presented in Competition. In 2022, he features in the family action films Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and Indiana Jones 5. Alice Rohrwacher Director & screenwriter - Italy World premiere screening of the short film Le pupille (The Pupils, 2022) Friday, May 27 at 2:30 pm - Salle Debussy After studying philosophy and literature at the univeristy of Turin, Alice Rohrwacher wrote and directed her first feature film Corpo celeste in 2011. Three years later, she directed her elder sister Alba Rohrwacher and Monica Bellucci in The Wonders which was presented in the Compétition at the 67th Festival de Cannes. She was awarded the Grand Prix du Jury that was presided by Jane Campion and became one of the major voices of her generation. She returned to Cannes for the 71st Festival with Happy As Lazzaro which won the Award for Best Screenplay, and then in 2019 as a member of the Jury presided by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The 2022 Festival de Cannes will offer a world premiere screening of her new short film produced by Alfonso Cuarón, shot in Super 16 and in 35mm format and entitled Le pupille. A facetious coming-of-age fable that ends with a cheeky moral: what if allegedly « bad girls » were the best? In this short film which is luscious in terms of the production as well as the art direction which aptly recreates the texture of childhood, Alice Rohrwacher will once again work with her sister Alba and for the first time with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi that we also find in Competition.


Festival de Cannes: Originally named for the 60th Festival de Cannes, the Salle du Soixantième, located on the rooftop of the Riviera since 2007, will be renamed "Salle Agnès Varda".


Swati Bhat

Pic Courtesy: Agnès Varda Theatre © FDC


“I don't just want to show, but also make people want to see”, she said. She got her Honorary Palme d'or, then her official poster: Agnès Varda was the picture of passion, affection and mischief. Sixty-five years of creation and experimentation, almost as long as the Festival de Cannes, which celebrates, like her, gazes, lives and worlds; and knows how to remember.

“I am not a woman filmmaker, I am a filmmaker,” she said. She often came to Cannes to show her films: thirteen times in the Official Selection. She was also a member of the Jury in 2005 and President of the Caméra d’or Jury in 2013. When she was awarded an Honorary Palme d'or in 2015, she mentioned “resistance and endurance, more than honor” and dedicated it “to all the inventive and courageous filmmakers, those who create original fiction or documentary films, who are not in the limelight but who carry on”.

Henceforth, a now essential Festival screening room will bear her name: the Salle Agnès Varda, formerly Salle du Soixantième. Every spectator will feel the symbol, the value and emotion.

Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, her children, declare : “We are proud and moved that the Festival de Cannes is honoring again the great little Agnès by giving her name to the pop-up theater of the Palais. Agnès and Cannes share a long story, with Cléo from 5 to 7 in Competition to begin in 1962, a fairy tale when Jacques Demy won the Palme d'or in 1964 for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, then Faces Places Out of Competition in 2017, without forgetting this magical evening when Agnès was awarded her Honorary Palme d'or. Between these special moments, all our memories remain, memories of films, of film families, memories of wonderful parties. Long live the Festival! Long live filmmaking!”



Festival de Cannes: Rocketry - The Nambi Effect to have world premiere at Cannes Tamil, Marathi, Malyalam, Mishing, Hindi language films to take center stage


Swati Bhat

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has today released the lineup of films that will be screened at Cannes Film Festival. The lineup includes the world premiere of Shri R Madhavan starrer Rocketry, also directed by Shri Madhavan. While Rocketry- The Nambi Effect will be premiered at Palais K, the other movies will be screened at the Olympia theater. The movies, to be screened at the 75th edition of the film festival are as below:


1. Rocketry – The Nambi Effect

Director: Shri R. Madhavan

Producer: Shri R. Madhavan

Language: Hindi, English, Tamil



Synopsis

Rocketry - The Nambi Effect is a retelling of Shri Nambi Narayanan’s life story as it unravels in an interview by the celebrated superstar and Badshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, on a TV program. Like many great minds, Nambi is also deeply flawed, his genius and obsession earning him enemies and detractors, thus making him a compelling modern protagonist. Beyond serving as a treatise for the vindication of quiet achievers in society, the film also challenges the audience to take up the responsibility of recognising, and celebrating the special contributors, whether it be a Nambi Narayanan or a teacher educating poor kids, soldiers at the border, doctors serving in remote villages, or volunteers helping the needy. It also raises a powerful question – why aren’t we standing up collectively to defend our innocent and powerless against the hegemony of the powers that be? For every Nambi, there are thousands of silent achievers fighting for justice. These stories need to be heard. It starts with Nambi, but he’s just the beginning.


2. Godavari

Director: Shri Nikhil Mahajan

Producer: Blue Drop Films Pvt. Ltd.

Language: Marathi


Synopsis

It is the story of one NISHIKANT DESHMUKH - who lives by the banks of a river, in an old mansion with his family. Through generations NISHI and his family have been rent collectors. They own a lot of property around the old part of town. While his grandfather, Naropant, suffers from dementia, his father Nilkanth, has chosen to forget. At the end of his bloodline, Nishikant is frustrated with his life. He hates the ways of the old town, he hates the insignificance of his life, he hates that he has been incapable - but like most Indian men, he chooses to internalize his hatred and blame it on factors like tenants and the town that are only incidental, if not entirely faultless. Nishikant collects rent and plays video games in his small apartment far away from the river. He has moved out of his family mansion, leaving his wife and daughter to live with his parents. He spends his time being angry at the river and everything it brings with it. He knows he is a lost cause. However, life and death have always coincided, coalesced seamlessly into each other and that amalgamation feels even more palpable in the town where one person’s death is a way of living for so many.


3. Alpha Beta Gamma

Director: Shri Shankar Srikumar

Producer: Choti Film Productions

Language: Hindi


Synopsis

Jai’s directorial career is on the uptick, though his marital life is on the rocks and he is trying to move on with his girlfriend Kaira. Mitali, his wife - wants a divorce so that she can marry her engineer boyfriend Ravi, who is sober and caring, as against her unpredictable soon-to-be ex-husband. When Jai drops in to talk divorce, Ravi is in the flat, the apartment that once used to be Jai and Mitali’s house. Ravi realising that it will be awkward for the estranged couple to discuss divorce in front of him decides to leave.

But before one of the men can make way for the other in Mitali’s life, the Corona virus lockdown intervenes.

Now three souls afflicted with the love virus struggle to decide what they want, and at what cost, with nowhere to go but inside.


4. Boomba Ride

Director: Shri Biswajeet Bora

Producer: Quatermoon Productions

Lanugage: Mishing


Synopsis

From GOD ON THE BALCONY director Biswajeet Bora, BOOMBA RIDE is a scathing comic satire of corruption in India’s rural education system – and one 8-year old boy (newcomer Indrajit Pegu, in a remarkable performance) who knows how to rig the game for himself. Inspired by a true story, the film was shot in the state of Assam on the banks of the Brahmaputra River with a mostly nonprofessional cast. The story revolves around an impoverished school where there is only one (unwilling) student, Boomba. Desperate to keep their jobs and funding, the teachers wind up bribing the hilariously impassive and uncooperative boy to show up to class – while Boomba’s secret wish is to attend the better-funded school in town where a slightly older and very pretty girl just happens to be a student.

“BOOMBA RIDE is a film that is very close to my heart. I was born and brought up in rural Assam. I have witnessed similar kinds of stories out there where the government run schools have no proper facilities that a school should have,” comments director Biswajeet Bora. “I believe only by growing awareness and taking responsibility for educating our poor and underprivileged classes, can we make a change in a broader way. Making the film wasn't easy as I shot with non-actors and also there were language barriers among us. However, I regard it as one of my best experiences to date because people around the village were very true and innocent, which really touched my heart. The location of the village was as pristine as it is seen and most interestingly we shot in real locations with local people. The protagonist Boomba is equally innocent and it is hard to believe that he hasn't seen a theater hall in his life. I believe people will connect with this serio-comic narrative, which is nothing but a subtle representation of a real world that actually exists in today's world.”


5. Dhuin

Director: Shri Achal Mishra

Producer: Achalchitra

Language: Hindi, Marathi


Synopsis

Pankaj is an aspiring actor who is making ends meet by doing street plays for the local municipality. He dreams of making it big, and along with his friend Prashant, is saving enough to move to Mumbai in a month's time. Back at his home, his family is under financial strain post the lockdown, and his retired father is now looking for a job. He wanders around the town through the day, meeting his theatre peers, being bossed around by his seniors, and giving out life advice to his juniors. After a meeting with a Mumbai-based filmmaker ends in an unexpected manner, he has a change of heart, and decides to give up his savings for his father's job.

On returning home one evening, he is asked to accompany his father for a job opening in a nearby town in a couple of days. The trip and the job will cost money, and the family has to arrange for it till then. When Pankaj is asked to arrange for a bike for the trip, he dismisses, running away from his responsibilities.


6. Tree Full of Parrots

Director: Shri Jayaraj

Producer: Navaneet Films

Language: Malayalam


Synopsis

Eight year old boy Poonjan is not an ordinary boy. He earns a living by doing small jobs like fishing in the back waters and looks after his family consisting of a drunkard father, grandfather and great grandfather. His mother eloped with another person years back. One day while fishing Poonjan saw a blind man sitting alone in the Boat yard who seemed to have lost his way home. He is demented, and only remembers a certain tree full of Parrots in front of his house. An attempt to report this man in the police station was futile. On the way through River banks he enquired, but nobody was able to guide them. Disheartened with the outcome of their journey, Poonjan was about to give up on the quest. Right then, he heard the sound of a parrot which lead him to the “tree full of parrots “! At last Poonjan decided to find the way back to the Blind man’s house by trying to spot the tree full of Parrots. Although the blind man’s son and daughter-in-law extended a warm welcome, something seemed fishy. Poonjan’s suspicion was confirmed when he overheard their conversation. While selling their current home and moving to a new one, they were hoping to get rid of the blind man. Through the conversation it became evident that they consider the blind man a burden, one that needs to be discarded. While leaving Poonjan said goodbye to the blind man and got on to the boat. However, knowing what he knows about the blind man’s fate, Poonjan’s conscience refused to leave him alone. Without anyone’s knowledge, he decides to invite the blind man on the journey back. Poonjan, accompanied by the blind man, rows the boat into the horizon.


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