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The red carpet extravaganza that is the Cannes Film Festival is always much awaited year on year – high glamour, celebrity galore, and a stream of some of the most talked-about films for the year. For the 2008 celebration, Sean Penn heads the Cannes Prize jury. But it isn’t just the films up for the prestigious Palme d’Or award that’s worth seeing – the short films, out-of-competition movies (like the latest Indiana Jones movie) – all celebrate cinematic creativity in all its glory.
Topping our list is Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, where Angelina Jolie plays a mother whose son is kidnapped and later returned, but before she realizes that the child is not hers. Set in 1920s LA, John Malkovich also plays a supporting role. Then there’s Steven Soderbergh’s Che, a lengthy two-part film about Che Guevara (it runs in total about four hours) with Benicio del Toro in the lead. A strong Palme d’Or contender is Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’ Linha de Passe, a story about four brothers living in Sao Paulo, only one of many South American contingents in the competition this year.
Despite mixed reviews, Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still highly anticipated by the public. Whatever might be said, we can’t wait to see the 65-year-old Harrison Ford crack his whip again in this Steven Spielberg-directed film. We should also cheer for Hong Kong's very own Wong Kar Wai, whose Ashes in the Time of Redux also debuts at this year's festival. Then there's Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, an animated feature film about the Israeli incursion in to Lebanon in 1982 that lead to the massacre of Palestinian refugees.
The directorial debut of Turner prize-winner Steve McQueen, Hunger, is also drawing attention, with the story about the 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison. Charlie Kaufman, the Academy Award and BAFTA-winning playwright and director,also has his Synecdoche, New York. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theatre director who tries to recreate a replica of New York inside a warehouse. The documentary about Roman Polanski, Wanted and Desired, revisits the time when he was charged with sexual intercourse with a minor and had to flee to the US. And lastly, remember Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever? The eponymous film of Pablo Larrain might be this year’s wild card. The story is set in the late 70s, during the peak of Pinochet’s regime, and is about a man who impersonates Tony Manero.
The Cannes Film Festival concludes on May 25, 2008 but make sure to catch the films when they hit cinemas.
For more information, visit www.festival-cannes.fr
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