Cannes Film Festival

The official poster is released for the 69th Festival de Cannes, taking place from May 11 to 22, 2016, and presided over by Australian director George Miller.   The poster was designed using stills from Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt. It’s all there. The steps, the sea, the horizon: a man’s ascent towards his dream, in a warm Mediterranean light that turns to gold. As an image it is reminiscent of a timeless quote used at the beginning of Contempt: “Cinema replaces our gaze with a world in harmony with our desires”. And so it is Michel Piccoli who in 2016, from the roof of the famous villa designed by the writer Curzio Malaparte, will open the red carpet for the 69th Festival de Cannes. It’s a symbolic choice, since this film about the making of a film – regarded by many as one of the finest ever made in CinemaScope (the Piccoli/Bardot pairing along with Fritz Lang, Raoul Coutard’s cinematography, Georges Delerue’s music, and so on and so forth) – had such a considerable impact on the history of film and cinephilia. On the eve of its 70th anniversary, by choosing to represent itself under the symbol of this simultaneously palimpsest and unambiguous film, the Festival is reiterating its founding commitment: to pay tribute to the history of film, and to welcome new ways of creating and seeing. The steps represent a kind of ascension towards the infinite horizon of a cinema screen. This 69th Festival de Cannes poster has been designed by Hervé Chigioni and his graphic designer Gilles Frappier. The 2016 visual identity has been created by Philippe Savoir (Filifox).

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Directors Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, will be the two Presidents of the Jury of the 68th Cannes Film Festival.  They will be joined by Rossy de Palma (Actress – Spain), Sophie Marceau (Actress, Director – France), Sienna Miller (pictured above) (Actress – United Kingdom), Rokia Traoré (Composer, Singer-songwriter – Mali), Guillermo del Toro (Director, Writer, Producer – Mexico), Xavier Dolan (Director, Writer, Producer, Actor – Canada), and Jake Gyllenhaal (Actor – United States). Their task will be to decide among the films in Competition and select the prize winners, culminating in the Palme d’or, which will be announced on stage during the Festival Closing Ceremony on Sunday May 24th, 2015. Rossy de Palma Actress – Spain She is an icon of Spanish cinema and Pedro Almodóvar’s muse: she inspired his 1986 film Law of Desire, performed in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Kika and The Flower of my Secret (nominated for two Goya Awards), and Broken Embraces (Official Selection: 2009 Festival de Cannes). She rose to international acclaim in the early 1990s with directors like Robert Altman, Mike Figgis, Patrice Leconte and Mehdi Charef. She is set to appear in Pedro Almodóvar’s next film. Sophie Marceau Actress, Director – France After winning a Cesar for Best “Espoir” at the age of 16 for Claude Pinoteau’s La Boum 2, her career grows with success in both mainstream and author cinema. Films include Police by Maurice Pialat, and L’Amour braque by Andrzej Żuławski. She achieved international acclaim for Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) and Bond movie – The World Is Not Enough (1999). Other notable credits include Don’t Look Back directed by Marina de Van – presented at the Festival de Cannes in 2009. With a career of over 40 films, she has also written and directed two feature films, Parlez-moi d’amour (2002) et La Disparue de Deauville (2007). Sienna Miller Actress – United Kingdom Experienced in both theater and cinema, she first gained recognition with her role in Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake (2004). She performed on Broadway in “Cabaret” by Sam Mendes. She starred in Foxcatcher by Bennett Miller which debuted at the 2014 Festival de Cannes and American Sniper by Clint Eastwood. She recently finished filming High Rise by Ben Wheatley. Rokia Traoré Composer, Singer-songwriter – Mali The inimitable Mali-born musician and singer Rokia Traoré has charted a distinctive course between tradition and modernity. Influenced by a nomadic childhood spent between Europe, the Middle East and Mali, the first CD by this singer songwriter with the captivating voice, Mouneïssa (1998), was highly acclaimed. In Wanita (2000), Bowmboï (2003), Tchamantché (2008) and Beautiful Africa (2013), Rokia Traoré drew on unprecedented combinations of instruments such as the balafon, the n’goni, the electric guitar and drums. Her openness to wide-ranging artistic collaborations is ample proof that music is her only continent. Guillermo del Toro Director, Writer, Producer – Mexico Guillermo del Toro is one of the most inventive among the new generation of Mexican directors, alongside Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Del Toro, who started out as a make-up artist and special effects specialist, now lives in the United States. His filmography boasts a rich array of distinctive and flamboyant works shot through with fantasy and imagination, from Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone and Blade II to Hellboy. Guillermo del Toro presented Cronos, his first feature film, in a parallel section at Cannes. Pan’s Labyrinth was selected in Competition in 2006. Xavier Dolan Director, Writer, Producer, Actor – Canada After shooting his first feature film, I Killed My Mother, at 20, he directed Heartbeats and Laurence Anyways, both of which received an enthusiastic reception when selected for Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes.Tom at the Farm was shown at the Venice Film Festival, where he was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize. His latest film Mommy has garnered the Jury Prize at last year’s Festival de Cannes and the César for Best Foreign Feature. Xavier Dolan is now working on his next feature, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan. Jake Gyllenhaal Actor, United States Jake Gyllenhaal was raised in a family of artists and made his cinema debut aged 11. He came to public attention in 2001 in Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko and built a career composed of both independent films and blockbusters. Considered one of Hollywood’s increasingly bankable stars, he appeared in Jarhead by Sam Mendes, then Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (Golden Lion in Venice) and in Zodiac by David Fincher, selected at the Festival de Cannes in 2007. He has recently appeared in two thrillers directed by Denis Villeneuve:Prisoners and Enemy along with Dan Gilroy’s Night Call. image via wikimedia

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