Even with an ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine, famous movie stars and filmmakers are back in the southern French city of Cannes for the film’s 75th anniversary festival.
The 11-day event started on Tuesday and runs until May 28. It was canceled in 2020. And it was held last year in July under pandemic restrictions.
This year, the parties are back, and two big movies will be screened, one with Tom Cruise and another with Tom Hanks.
Cruise is back in Cannes for the screening of his film Top Gun Maverick based on the 1980s movie, Superior gun. And Tom Hanks is in a movie about the life of singer Elvis Presley.
The Presley movie was directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann, known for Romeo and Juliet and Gatsby the magnificent in the same way red Mill and Australia. And director David Cronenberg returns with Future Crimes featuring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux.
Scott Roxborough directs European coverage for The Hollywood Reporter. He called the group of films “one of the best Cannes Waiting lines in years.”
Another American actor and director, Forest Whitaker, will be in Cannes to receive one of the festival’s most prestigious awards, known as the Palme D’or, for lifetime achievement in film.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux told reporters, “It’s a tradition to have our American friends” in France. He noted that the Cannes Film Festival started as a partnership between France and Hollywood in 1939 but was delayed due to World War II. The first year of the festival dates back to 1946.
While China won’t have any films at the event, other Asian countries will be represented. Actor Lee Jung-jae, who shot to fame last year for his performance in squid gameis in a new movie called hunt. Filmmakers Park Chan-wook from South Korea and Hirokazu Kore-eda from Japan also present their new films.
The festival opened on Tuesday with final cuta movie about zombies. French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius first called it Z like Z But he changed the name because the letter Z is used by Russian soldiers in the war in Ukraine.
Russian films were not allowed at the festival.
Two films with links to Ukraine will be screened. One is called Mariupolis 2 by Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius. He was killed when Mariupol was bombed by Russian forces almost a month ago while working on the film. The other is Butterfly vision by Ukrainian director Maksim Nakonechnyi. It is about a woman who returns home to Ukraine after being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Fremaux, the festival director, said “we will never stop thinking about what is happening in Ukraine”, even though the event celebrates films for a short time.
I am Dan Friedell.
Dan Friedell adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on Reuters reporting.
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words in this story
festival– nm an organized series of performances over a short period of time
line up – nm a sequence of events or performances
zombie – nm a made-up being who can move even after death often mentioned in scary books and movies
