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Studiocanal’s epic romance Beating Hearts kept the French box office pumping through the month of November as Paramount’s Gladiator II opened to boost ticket sales to a total 17.7 million, up 17% from the same month last year, according to the Cnc.

Total box office for the month was an estimated €127m, based on an average ticket price of €7.20.

Beating Hearts was the biggest film for a second month, adding 2.2m admissions to its nearly 4.5m total according to Cbo figures. It is now Studiocanal’s highest grossing film in France to date and among the top five titles of...

Christophe Honoré fans have much to celebrate this January. Ahead of his latest feature, the meta Chiara Mastroianni-led Cannes selection Marcello Mio, arriving in U.S. theaters on January 31 from Strand Releasing, one of his most provocative, acclaimed earlier films has been restored. Coming from KimStim Films, his 2004 psychosexual drama Ma Mère, starring Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel, will open at the IFC Center a week earlier on January 24. Ahead of this release, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the new trailer for the Nc-17-rated feature.

Based on George Bataille’s posthumous and controversial novel, here’s the synopsis: “Ma mère takes place in the Canary Islands, where the film’s family shares a home. The mother Hélène (Isabelle Huppert), cool and in charge, and her teenaged son Pierre (Louis Garrel), a pious Catholic back from boarding school, discuss his father’s infidelity; the next they hear, he...

Seen from the 14th floor of its Radisson Hotel, Montevideo’s skyline, bristling with white marble high-rises and monuments, looks like a very different scenario for Ventana Sur, Latin America’s foremost film-tv co-pro forum and market, relocated from its chic Buenos Aires setting for the first time since 2009.

Yet in many ways, this is the same Ventana Sur, playing to its strengths and galvanized by its context, Uruguay, one of Latin America’s fastest-growing film-tv hubs, both as a big-shoot locale and home-grown movie industry.

Ten takes, as producers and sales agents began to arrive at the Radisson for this year’s edition, hosted by Cannes Marché du Film and Uruguay’s public-sector film agency, Agencia del Cine y Audiovisual (Acau), and running Dec. 2-6 in the Uruguayan capital:

Attendance Holds

As of Saturday night, attendance had just passed 2,000 delegates, tracking to hit that number of jobbing professionals by market end,...

Production is officially underway on Alice Winocour‘s fifth feature film, Coutures aka Stitches, and the casting announcements keep getting bigger. Joining yesterday’s reveal of Angelina Jolie are Louis Garrel and Ella Rumpf who reteams with her Raw co-star Garance Marillier, model Anyier Anei and Finnegan Oldfield who round out the ensemble. Variety reports that filming is currently underway in Paris. Other behind the line players involved include cinematographer Andre Chemetoff (he just completed Shaden Safieddine Tazi’s Un jour tout va disparaitre), costume designer Pascaline Chavanne, and production designer Florian Sanson. Producers include CG Cinéma’s Charles Gillibert and Closer Media’s Zhang Xin and William Horberg.…...

César Award winners Ella Rumpf and Louis Garrel will co-star alongside Angelina Jolie in director Alice Winocour’s first English-language film “Stitches.”

I can also exclusively report that Anyier Anei, Garance Marillier and Finnegan Oldfield have been cast as well.

“Stiches” follows American filmmaker Maxine (Jolie) on a “life and death journey as she arrives in Paris for Fashion Week,” reads an official logline of the movie. Filming is currently underway in Paris.

The production team includes cinematographer Andre Chemetoff, costume designer Pascaline Chavanne, and production designer Florian Sanson.

Charles Gillibert of CG Cinéma is producing alongside Zhang Xin and William Horberg of Closer Media, Bob Xu is serving as an executive producer. Pathé Films, which previously collaborated with Winocour on her Cannes Directors’ Fortnight premiere “Revoir Paris,” will handle distribution in France.

“Stiches” financing was structured by UTA Independent Film Group, who are also representing global and North American rights,...

Spain’s Mil Monos Cine and Argentina’s Cosmic Brew Studios are teaming to produce leading Argentina-born and Spain-based filmmaker Pablo Agüero’s “Gravityland,” a 2D animated feature project selected to pitch at this year’s Animation! sidebar at Ventana Sur.

In the film, a speleologist – a scientist who studies caves – disappears while investigating changes in Earth’s gravity field. When the planet’s gravity reverses, the specialist’s children decide to climb into the planet’s interior to look for her, understanding that when the world is turned upside down, one must jump into the void to reach the stars.

Agüero is an accomplished filmmaker who has worked in various mediums and genres. His 2006 short “Primera nieve” won the jury prize for best short film at Cannes and his 2008 feature “Salamandra” screened in competition at the French festival. This year, he helmed “Saint-Exupéry” starring Vincent Cassel, Louis Garrel and...

Hugo Covarrubias’ “Baptism,” Danna Galeano’s “Foldara” and Ricardo Kump and Lucas Abrahão “The Factory Beyond the Hill” feature in a powerful lineup of titles at this year’s Animation! Pitching Sessions which take part at Ventana Sur, staged in Montevideo over Dec. 2-6.

The showcase of animation titles from Latin America also features a project, “Gravityland,” from Argentina’s Pablo Aguëro, director of upcoming “Saint-e,” starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger y Louis Garrel, as well as “Hua Awakens,” the multiple producers of which include Magdiela Hermida Duhamel whose credits include “Trollhunters.”

Also in this year’s Animation! mix is Coty Luzoro, writer of Oscar winning outfit Punkrobot Studio’s “Wow Lisa” and Ecuador’s Keila Cepeda, behind fest fave “Chimborazo.”

“Baptism” marks the feature film debut of Chile’s Covarrubias whose scored an Academy Award-nomination for best animated short in 2022 for “Beast.” The feature looks set to explore the...

An ethereal beauty like no other, Eva Green has scooped up multiple roles in innumerable star-studded projects and never once ceased to leave viewers baffled with her tremendous emotional complexity. After starting her acting career through theatre, she debuted in Hollywood in 2003 and didn’t take long to become one of the most sought-after actresses of all time.

Eva Green in Casino Royale. | Credits: Sony Pictures.

Also renowned for playing a Bond Girl in 2006’s Casino Royale, she didn’t hesitate to bare herself to star as the peerless spy’s love interest even though it was only the beginning of her career. This was because, before this film, Green starred in The Dreamers, which had her pulling some risky moves with her co-star to calm her nerves before shooting an intimate scene.

Eva Green Took Some Real Risks While Shooting The Dreamers

When she got cast in Casino Royale...

Las españolas ‘Una Ballena’ y ‘Apocalipsis Z: El Principio del Fin’ en competición.

El Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico de Sitges ha comenzado la cuenta atrás para su próxima edición con el anuncio de sus primeros títulos.

Entre las películas más esperadas se encuentran “A Different Man”, el thriller psicológico de comedia negra protagonizado por Sebastian Stan, “Cuckoo”, la película de Neon protagonizada por Hunter Schafer, “The Second Act”, la película de Quentin Dupieux que abrió la última edición del Festival de Cannes protagonizada por Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon y Raphaël Quenard, la película de la conocida saga de terror, “Terrifier 3”, el filme dirigido por Jang Jae-hyun “Exhuma”, o “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In”, la película que se proyectó en la sesión de Medianoche de la última edición del Festival de Cannes, llena de acción y artes marciales.

Las producciones españolas que competirán en la sección...

While Hollywood has been exploiting comic books and YA novels as intellectual property for a long time, French cinema has only recently begun to feed its wealth of 19th century novels into the content machine, churning big-budget epics out of classic books in the public domain.

Last year, a two-part version of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers hit local screens, raking in $45 million off a combined $80 million budget for both films. Directed by Martin Bourboulon and featuring a who’s who of Gallic stars, including Vincent Cassel, Eva Green, Romain Duris and Louis Garrel, the Musketeers movies were marked by nonstop action and relentless storytelling tailor-made for the streaming age.

Both films were written by the duo of Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, who previously helmed a series of hit comedies (Daddy or Mommy, Divorce French Style, What’s in a Name?) with a fast-paced Hollywood edge to them.

Bertrand Bonello with Anne-Katrin Titze on Romy Schneider’s face in Coma, the camera test by Henri-Georges Clouzot for his unfinished film L’enfer (Inferno): “I was trying to find an image that you could dream of when you’re a young girl.”

Bertrand Bonello’s prophetic Coma (with a haunting score by the director/screenwriter), starring Louise Labèque (of Zombi Child) as the adolescent and Julia Faure as the title character Patricia Coma, was filmed in France during the Covid pandemic lockdown. We hear the voices of Gaspard Ulliel (Yves Saint Laurent in Bonello’s Saint Laurent), Anaïs Demoustier, Laetitia Casta, Louis Garrel, and Vincent Lacoste as the dollhouse figures. We see Romy Schneider’s face in a camera test for Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished Inferno (L’Enfer) and meet a woman in the forest portrayed by Bonnie Banane.

Young girl (Louise Labèque) with Sharon doll in Coma

Theorists Gilles Deleuze,...

French producer Dimitri Rassam is enjoying a high-profile Cannes Film Festival as producer of Competition title Limonov: The Ballad and The Count Of Monte Cristo, which scored a rousing 12-minute ovation at its Out of Competition debut.

“It’s my first film in Competition, it has been a tremendous ride,” says Rassam, who is a producer on Limonov under his Paris-based Chapter 2 banner, alongside Italy’s Lorenzo Gangarossa and Mario Gianani as well as director Kirill Serebrennikov’s long-time collaborator Ilya Stewart.

Rassam is no stranger to the Cannes red carpet having regularly accompanied his actress mother Carole Bouquet in his early 20s, before mounting the festival’s famed steps in his own right as the producer of The Little Prince and co-producer of L’Immensità.

Cinema is also in his blood on his paternal side through late producer father Jean-Pierre Rassam, and uncle Paul Rassam, the long-time friend and collaborator...

Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.For more Cannes 2024 coverage, subscribe to the Weekly Edit newsletter.The Second Act.There is a filmmaker who makes movies that are above all conceptual, with the story but a brittle skeleton barely holding the thing together. He makes at least one movie a year, all under 90 minutes, all modestly casual affairs with various doses of drollness; and all feature a philosophical premise or metaphysical quandary at their core. He writes, directs, shoots, and edits the films himself. Dissenters tend to think he isn’t funny and that all his movies are tedious and basically the same; fans, of course, hold the opposite opinion. He opened the Cannes Film Festival this year, but despite what you may assume, this filmmaker isn’t Hong Sang-soo; rather, it’s Quentin Dupieux, who also shares with Hong a cinema of welcome brevity and levity. These might be the reasons...

The Cannes Film Festival is many things: A prestigious platform for the best of world cinema, a massive industry event where film acquisitions get made, a testament to the French film industry’s classism and rampant sexual abuse. But more than anything, it’s one of the world’s greatest photo opps.

Sure, sure, everyone wants the Palme D’or. But even more people would kill to get seen on the iconic Cannes red carpet, and get their picture snapped by the hordes of press that camp on the Croisette. Some of the world’s most glamorous and beautiful celebrities can be seen on the steps outside the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès every year posing for the cameras, and while it’s not quite the fashion moment that the Met Gala is, it still offers a great opportunity for us pleebs to gawk at some particularly shiny stars in all of their finery.

Quentin Dupieux’s new film The Second Act (Le deuxième acte) opened the 77th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival. It’s noteworthy that it’s a Netflix co-production and, although this could mean that Dupieux eventually reaches many more people, there’s nothing to worry about in the sense that his cinema remains very peculiar. Likewise, Dupieux continues a prolific and high-quality streak, which includes recent titles such as Incredible But True (Incroyable mais vrai), Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer fait tousser) and Yannick. At the beginning of The Second Act we see friends David (Louis Garrel) and Willy (Raphaël Quenard) walking together and chatting about a peculiar proposal: David wants Willy to help him get rid of a woman who has been trying to seduce him for...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.For more Cannes 2024 coverage, subscribe to the Weekly Edit newsletter.In a welcome twist, the most pressing questions I heard on my way to Cannes this year didn’t concern the festival lineups but events that seemed to transcend them. In the days leading up to the opening night, Sous les écrans la dèche, a collective of festival workers, announced it would be striking over salary increases and unemployment benefits; as I type, the strikes haven’t materialized, nor has the rumored list of new sexual abuse allegations about men in the French film industry. “Last year, as you know, we had some polemics,” artistic director Thierry Frémaux told the press on the eve of the fest, hinting at the decision to open the 2023 edition with Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry, a film that would have been forgotten a lot faster than it was had it...

Léa Seydoux with her The Second Act co-star Raphaël Quenard Photo: Richard Mowe Léa Seydoux, the star of The Second Act, Quentin Dupieux’s Cannes Film Festival opening film, considers herself fortunate at the start of her career not to have been subjected to the kind of inappropriate behaviour suffered by some of her contemporaries.

At a media gathering after last night’s world premiere in the 77th edition of the festival the one-time James Bond girl confessed: “I’ve been a very fortunate person as an actress. From the beginning I worked with people who respected me - more or less. It’s difficult to compare, however, as some women were really victims and went through a very serious experience.”

Having emerged relatively unscathed she sensed that her stature and standing had protected her. “When you’re a young actress, you are vulnerable,” she said.

Director Quentin Dupieux treats...

by Cláudio Alves

Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon in The Second Act.

Another year, another edition of the Cannes at Home miniseries, specially made to combat cinephile Fomo for those of us not at the French Riviera. For the next week or so, let's explore the filmographies of directors in competition. However, since the festival opened with the latest Quentin Dupieux project, it seems fitting to start our at-home festival by considering the auteur's career and the oddball creations that have made him something of a king of weirdness within contemporary French cinema. Not that such status comes with guaranteed acclaim. The opposite is true, with Dupieux's cinema caught in perpetual polemic, each work more divisive than what came before.

Such is the case with The Second Act, where the director proposes a comedy on the absurdities of making an AI-based film. Not even Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon,...

Cannes regular Léa Seydoux joined playful press conference for fest opener The Second Act, where talk occasionally turned serious as the actress was peppered with several questions from the international press about her thoughts on the #MeToo era.

“I have been a very fortunate person as an actress. At the beginning of my career, I worked with people who respected me, more or less,” said Seydoux. “Some women were really victims. But in my case, I can’t compare with someone women who really went through and experienced very serious things.”

#MeToo is a contentious issue in France, where the perception is the entertainment industry has been slow to evolve. Seydoux has previously spoken about challenging conditions on Blue is the Warmest Color, her 2013 Palme d’Or winner that landed her international fame, and featured a 7-minute lesbian sex scene that took 10 days to shoot, while the film involved upwards...

In Quentin Dupieux’s new satirical comedy The Second Act, which kicked off the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday night, the pic takes poke at myriad culture wars, including France’s latest #MeToo movement. Asked front and center about her take on the latest wave, the pic’s star Léa Seydoux said “It’s a wonderful thing that women are speaking out. It’s about high time they did.”

“This change has been taking place. The film also plays with this idea. It also talks about very current events, and this movement where women are now speaking out and that was a fundamental importance of that change to take place,” said the 007 actress.

“I see there’s been a change, we’ve moved on,” said Seydoux, who came up as a young actress in the biz.

Later expounding, the actress emphasized the changes she’s seen in the industry due...

Léa Seydoux addressed France’s growing #MeToo movement at the Cannes Film Festival press conference for Quentin Dupieux’s comedy “The Second Act,” which opened the fest on Tuesday night.

“It’s a wonderful thing that women are now speaking out. Things are clearly changing and it was high time it did,” she said. “I have the impression that this change has indeed taken place. The film also plays with this idea, it also talks about very current events and this movement, where women are now speaking out, and that was of fundamental importance for this change to take place.”

Seydoux continued, “#MeToo is very important. It’s a very serious issue. However, I think it is also necessary to be able to talk about it with humor. In the film, this is highlighted in a very funny way.”

Addressing the impact of #MeToo on the way actresses are treated on set,...

Quentin Dupieux returns with The Second Act, a playfully dour satire on the film industry that sees the French absurdist delve further into the apocalyptic mood and gallows humor of his recent Yannick. The Cannes opener stars some of the biggest names in the French film world as heightened versions of themselves: actors working on a film within the film (and perhaps a film within that), a conceit that allows them to break the fourth wall, basically winking at the audience conspiratorially while taking passing shots at themselves and some of the hands that feed them. It’s all in good fun, of course. It’s also quite inside baseball––not that that mattered at the premiere, though you do have to wonder how it might resonate going forward.

Selected to raise the curtain on the world’s most prestigious film festival, The Second Act rolled moments after the opening ceremony closed,...

It could have been hopelessly self-indulgent but Quentin Dupieux’s anarchic and quirky sense of humour finds full flavour in this amusing “appetiser” which still leaves you hankering after a full meal.

Better that than overstaying its welcome as his cast play around with the foibles and artifice of their craft as they are gathered together to make a romantic comedy.

The collective view is that they are making a pretty dire production and to liven things up they keep interrupting the shoot to voice their own grievances against each other, the script and the unseen director who keeps shouting, “Cut!”

Most of the film unfurls in a roadside pub called The Second Act, presided over by the lumbering barkeeper (played by Manuel Guillot).

Working out where the play-acting stops and the “real” action begins is enough to keep you on the edge of interest...

The stormy clouds outside the Palais might have dampened some spirits as the credits rolled on the opening night film of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Or maybe it was the movie itself.

“The Second Act,” Quentin Dupieux’s talky French comedy about the making of the first movie directed by AI, mustered a lukewarm 3.5-minute standing ovation on Tuesday night in Cannes.

Dupieux attedned the premiere along with his French cast of Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon and Raphaël Quenard. The four actors all politely stood as a camera quickly passed by through the tepid applause.

In the meta film, these French stars play actors making a romantic comedy they know is pointless, as it’s the first movie written and directed by AI. In the opening scenes, we learn that Florence (Seydoux) wants to take things to the next level with David (Garrel), but he is no...

Cannes film festival

With help from an A-list cast, Dupieux brings his customary mischief to an amiable tale of imposture and role play

Cannes can always do worse than choose a comedy for its opening gala, and the festival is off to an amiable, entertaining start. Quentin Dupieux brings the wackiness onstream with this cheerfully mischievous, unrepentantly facetious fourth-wall-badgering sketch. It’s a sprightly meta gag, a movie about a movie, or perhaps a movie about a movie about a movie – or perhaps just a movie, full stop, whose point is to claim that reality as we experience it inside and outside the cinema is unitary despite the levels of imposture and role-play we bring to it. It is all just one unbroken skein of experience like the endless dolly-track (the temporary rail that lets the camera move smoothly) that Dupieux finally shows us.

There are plenty of laugh lines,...

With 13 features made since 2007, and six in the past four years, French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupieux is clearly no slacker. Not only has he helmed all these films — he’s also written, shot and edited them, as well as composed many of their scores.

Starting with his surreal deadpan début, Rubber, and up through last year’s Yannick and Daaaaali!, Dupieux has had an impressively prolific run, gradually improving with each new movie while honing a style and tone that are completely his own.

If, however, there’s one drawback to this incessant activity, it’s that his films all have very short running times because they tend to lack classic denouements. They’re well-executed, high-concept affairs blending comedy, sci-fi, horror and other genres in fun ways, but they often play out like long second acts without real endings.

Dupieux was perhaps aware of this flaw when he decided to call...

Something has subtly shifted in Quentin Dupieux’s perspective, leaving the one-man-band of French cinema a rather different auteur than the anti-comedy punk that nearly stumbled onto the festival stage so many years ago. Chalk it up to maturity or to an impressive professional rise — reaching new highs this year with the opening slot at the Cannes Film Festival — but the director’s tone has softened and his targets have shifted, even as his working methods (and working ethic) remain set-in-stone.

Like a distant Gallic cousin to Wes Anderson and Hong Sang-soo (now there are two names you rarely see together), Dupieux has connected a distinctive voice into a well-honed system built for productivity, allowing him to write-direct-shoot-edit-and-score a new film every year. And sometimes, he finds time for two.

Within the past twelve months, he’s brought films “Yannick” and “Daaaaaalí!” to Locarno and Venice, and now steps into...

Updated with ovation for The Second Act: The Cannes Film Festival opened Tuesday evening with a joyously female vibe as Meryl Streep received the Honorary Palme d’Or from an emotional Juliette Binoche and Greta Gerwig became the first female U.S. director to serve as jury president across its 77 editions.

The ceremony at the Palais led into the festival’s opening-night film The Second Act from Quentin Dupieux. The French pic, starring Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel, received a lukewarm 3-minute, 46-second standing ovation from the audience.

Earlier, resplendent in a long sequin gown, Gerwig said she was still coming to terms with the fact that she was presiding over the Cannes jury.

“I hardly know what to say… This is holy to me; art is sacred, film is sacred… I cannot believe that I’m getting the chance to spend 10 days in this house of worship.”

The...

Cannes Film Festival kicked off its 77th edition with opening night film The Second Act, an apt title for the French event that kicked off with clear skies and a festive mood after days of looming strikes, #MeToo rumours and a high tension geopolitical landscape.

General delegate Thierry Fremaux set the tone for the evening by walking casually to the Lumiere theatre with microphone in hand with a simple “good evening everyone - Quentin Dupieux” as the director and his starry cast including Lea Seydoux and Louis Garrel took their seats.

French actress Camille Cottin emceed the evening with a blend of humour and sarcasm,...

Who let the dog out?

The Cannes Film Festival red carpet is notoriously strict about its black-tie dress code (one man in a blue tuxedo who committed the fashion travesty of wearing white socks was almost turned away). But on Tuesday night, France welcomed a national hero to the opening night of the 77th edition — Messi, the four-legged scene-stealer from last year’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall.”

The canine phenom helped brighten things up even as dark clouds gathered over the Palais des Festivals, site of Cannes’ biggest premieres. Despite the foreboding weather and light drizzle, Lily Gladstone, Greta Gerwig, Omar Sy, Jane Fonda, Juliette Binoche and other stars added some glamour and sparkle to the evening.

Photos: See the best red carpet looks.

But the gloomy skies mirrored the film business’s state of mind as the most famous celebration of cinema begins its 11-day marathon of premieres,...

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is officially underway in the South of France as A-listers, auteurs and America’s most revered actress, Meryl Streep, converged at the Palais’ Grand Theatre Lumiere on Tuesday for a typically glamorous opening ceremony.

The anticipation was as thick as the clouds in the sky on Tuesday as rain was not the only threat hanging over the start of this year’s festival. From a possible strike and a fresh #MeToo discussion in France to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, festival officials have faced many questions in the days and hours leading up to Tuesday night. During his annual kick-off press conference, festival boss Thierry Fremaux sidestepped looming issues and tried to center the main attraction and the core mission of delivering world-class cinema. “We are trying to have a festival without these polemics,” he said, encouraging people (particularly the press) to...

Et voilà, The Second Act, a bubbly apéritif to open this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the latest bit of mischief from Quentin Dupieux, the Loki of the French cinematic universe. Dupieux turns out a film roughly once a year, featuring protagonists ranging from a rogue rubber tire cruising the highway for victims to a giant fly captured by a couple of petty crooks who try to turn it into a sideshow attraction. Each wacky new romp brings new fans into the tent and, on the evidence of his recent cast lists, entices more big-name actors to run away and join his circus.

So roll up here to see Bond girl Léa Seydoux, the baggy-eyed veteran Vincent Lindon and the usually smoldering Louis Garrel along with a troupe of faces familiar to Dupieux’s audience. The three of them play actors shooting what appears to be an especially banal rom-com.

After a frenzied day of covert organizing and internal discussions, members of the Precarious Film Festival Workers Collective (Le Collectif des précaires des festivals de cinéma) staged an impromptu rooftop protest at Tuesday’s Cannes Film Festival opening-night gala.

Members of the group snuck onto the roof of the Palais where they dropped a sign with their motto Sous les écrans la dèche. At the same time, another group of demonstrators from the collective began a second protest on the ground. They held a sign with the same message and began chanting and blowing whistles to draw attention.

Local armed police immediately descended on the ground protesters and snatched the banner away after a brief tussle with the protestors. There were around a dozen protesters on the roof and a dozen more on the ground. You can see footage from the dramatic tug between the protesters and police below.

In France, the concept of irony is referred to as “deuxième degré” (second degree), where the “premier degré” is the literal or surface meaning, which can be twisted as audiences read an entirely different, often contrary meaning into the material. But the game doesn’t necessarily stop there. There is also “troisième degré,” “quatrième degré” and so on, as deep as you want to go.

For absurdist trickster Quentin Dupieux (whose films “Deerskin” and “Rubber” have found a cult following), “The Second Act” presents a frivolous fun-house mirror, in which actors Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon and Raphaël Quenard play actors playing actors in a pointless romantic comedy. They all know they’re making a bad movie, and one by one, they keep interrupting the shoot to air their personal grievances. But that’s only the beginning in a slender meta-textual doodle selected to kick off the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Exclusive: Natalie Portman has joined the voice cast for French director Ugo Bienvenu’s upcoming animated feature Arco about a boy who uses rainbows to travel through time and his adventures as he gets stuck in the wrong era.

Portman is also producing with Sophie Mas under their joint Paris and New York banner MountainA with Félix de Givry at Paris-based Remembers.

Taking its cue from the fantasy premise that rainbows are time machines, the movie revolves around 10 year old rainbow-child Arco, who lives in the distant future, 2932.

His maiden journey in his multi-colored suit does not go to plan. He loses control and veers off course to land in a near future, 2075, where Iris, a girl the same age as Arco, witnesses his fall and then makes it her mission to get him home.

Arco

Arco is the first feature for Bienvenu after short films Maman and L’entretien and comic books.

The Olympic flame is coming to the Cannes Film Festival red carpet.

The 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes will serve as a preview for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with the premiere screening of Mickaël Gamrasni’s documentary “Olympiques! La France des Jeux” on May 21.

Paris 2024, in agreement with the Mairie de Cannes, is offering the flame to the film festival as a preview before it’s officially welcomed by the city of Cannes on June 18 along the Olympic Torch Relay, which began in Marseille on May 8. Sports personalities and athletes will be the guests of honor at the special screening: Tony Estanguet (pictured above), Marie-José Pérec, Thierry Rey, Iliana Rupert, Marie Patouillet, Nélia Barbosa, Alexis Hanquiquant, Christine Caron and Brahim Asloum will flank Paralympic champion Arnaud Assoumani, who will carry the Olympic flame onto the red carpet.

“What a joy it is to welcome such a host of Olympic stars,...

What to expect from Cannes 2024? The global selection offers critics plenty to write about — after all, this is the festival d’auteurs. But this year’s edition may be light on the red carpet glitz that lures celebrities to the Côte d’Azur for eye-popping photo memes and offshore yacht revels. Remember Madonna’s 1991 pointy Gaultier bustier? Elizabeth Taylor holding her white dog as “Cliffhanger” star Sylvester Stallone climbed the steps to meet her at the top? Such viral moments are what Cannes director Thierry Fremaux dreams of.

High-octane stars expected to hit the Palais photo gauntlet include two-time Oscar-winner Emma Stone, who stars in all three stories in competition title “Kinds of Kindness” (Searchlight), Yorgos Lanthimos’ edgy follow-up to $100-million grosser “Poor Things.” Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth will add some sizzle for out-of-competition prequel “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (Warner Bros.), George Miller’s rollercoaster return after 2015’s Oscar-winning “Mad Max: Fury Road.

A growing list of at least 300 international industry professionals, including John Landis, Louis Garrel, Ernest Dickerson, and Ariane Labed have lent their names to a petition in support of a planned strike action by Cannes Film Festival workers during this year’s edition.

The petition was launched this week by the Precarious Film Festival Workers Collective (Le Collectif des précaires des festivals de cinéma), the unofficial workers union behind the strike action. The names of signatories had initially been kept private but the group made them public this afternoon on their official website.

Other signatories on the petition include Thomas Hakim, the producer behind 2024 Cannes competition title All We Imagine As Light, Belgian filmmaker and two-time Palme d’Or winner Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and veteran French cinematographer Agnès Godard.

The extent of the petition comes as we revealed this morning that France’s main union for people employed in the entertainment...

Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Daaaaaalí!,” the latest film by Quentin Dupieux whose upcoming movie “The Second Act” will world premiere on opening night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A comedic and unpredictable tribute to Salvador Dalí, “Daaaaaalí!” premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, followed by screenings at the BFI London Film Festival and Rotterdam.

In “Daaaaaalí!,” a French journalist repeatedly meets Dalí to begin an interview for a documentary film project that never starts shooting. Anaïs Demoustier stars as a journalist attempting to pin down the eccentric and elusive Salvador Dalí, who is played by five different actors, Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï, and Didier Flamand.

Music Box Films will release “Daaaaaalí!” theatrically later this year with a home entertainment release to follow.

“We were thoroughly charmed by the playful, antic spirit of Quentin Dupieux’s film,...

Meryl Streep is set to receive the highest honor at the Cannes 2024 ceremony.

The Oscar winner has been announced to be feted with the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th annual festival; Variety first reported the news. Streep has not been to Cannes in exactly 35 years, since winning best actress for 1989’s “Evil Angels a Cry in the Dark” directed by Fred Schepisi.

Michael Douglas received the opening ceremony honorary Palme d’Or award in 2023.

Streep’s career has ranged from Academy Award-nominated turns in dramas such as “Sophie’s Choice” to musicals like “Into the Woods.” Streep’s rom-com efforts have marked collaborations with Nancy Meyers and other iconic filmmakers. She most recently starred in Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building,” following her former “Big Little Lies” TV role. Streep was recently honored by the Academy Museum Gala in 2023 for her career achievements.

As previously announced,...

Meryl Streep will receive the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival, Variety has learned.

Luring the Oscar winner is yet another feat for this Cannes edition, which will bring together a flurry Hollywood legends. Notably, George Lucas will receive the honorary Palme d’Or during the closing ceremony; Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” are playing in competition; and George Miller‘s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga” are playing out of competition. Streep will be also in good company at the festival with “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig serving as jury president. The pair worked together on “Little Women.”

The honorary tribute will mark Streep’s long-awaited return to Cannes after decades. It appears that her last trip to the festival dates back to Fred Schepisi...

"Total nonsense, don't listen to what they're saying." Unifrance has revealed the first look teaser trailer for the new film from Quentin Dupieux titled The Second Act, which will be the Opening Night premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival this month. The fest kicks off May 14th – and this will be screening on that same day and opening in French theaters, too. Dupieux has been cranking out films non-stop, with Smoking Causes Coughing, Yannick, and Daaaaaali! just in the last few years. This next one stars Léa Seydoux as Florence, Louis Garrel as David, Vincent Lindon as Guillaume, and Raphaël Quenard as Willy, plus Manuel Guillot as Stephane and Françoise Gazio as Rose. Here is the setup: Florence (Seydoux) wants to introduce David (Garrel), the man she's madly in love with, to her father, Guillaume (Lindon). But David isn't attracted to Florence and wants to throw her into the arms...

Cannes begins, against all reason, two weeks from today, and with it comes the trailer for this year’s opening-night selection. (Arriving in French theaters the same day is no doubt further incentive to get the marketing machine rolling.) Quentin Dupieux’s Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act) stars Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, Manuel Guillot, and the director’s mainstay Raphaël Quenard, and at a slim 76 minutes suggest one of the breezier starts the festival’s had in some time.

Although the official synopsis is rather straightforward––”Florence wants to introduce David, the man she’s madly in love with, to her father Guillaume. But David isn’t attracted to Florence and wants to throw her into the arms of his friend Willy. The four characters meet in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere”––this preview hints at the rather meta approach Seydoux revealed in an interview:...

Leading French production-distribution outfit Le Pacte has boarded the upcoming 2D animated feature project “Conference of the Birds,” which will be spotlighted at the Marché du Film’s Animation Day during this year’s Cannes Festival.

In addition to co-producing, Le Pacte will handle French distribution and serve as international sales agent on the film, part of the five-title Annecy Showcase at the Animation Day. Confirmed voice cast members include Golshifteh Farahani and Louis Garrel.

“Conference of the Birds” is an updated adaptation of Farid al-Din Attar’s 900-year-old Persian poem of the same name. The film centers on a flock of birds who are the sole survivors of a man-made natural disaster. Leading the avian gang is Hod-Hod, a young adventurous hoopoe who sets off on a quest to meet the legendary bird Simorgh, rumored to hold the key to solving all the birds’ problems.

According to the filmmakers,...

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival lineup was finally revealed at the sliver of dawn on Thursday, April 11. Festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled this year’s crop of films across the many sections, from the Competition to Un Certain Regard, during a press conference beginning at 5 a.m. Et. See the full lineup below.

The 77th edition of Cannes comes to the Côte d’Azur May 14 through 25, and a few titles were already confirmed to be in the mix. There’s Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded epic “Megalopolis,” which has already screened for a rarified few in the United States to much awe and speculation over what distributor might take on Coppola’s experimental vision. For his first feature since 2011’s “Twixt,” Coppola gathered a cast including Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia Labeouf, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Schwartzman for a sci-fi vision of a ruined NYC-like metropolis.

For readers of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, extravagant French adaptation “The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady” packs its share of surprises: killing off important characters, sparing others and reimagining allegiances that have stood for nearly two centuries. For viewers of “Part I: D’Artagnan,” however, this swashbuckling sequel feels totally in keeping with what came before. Even the twists track, paying off what amounts to a nearly four-hour investment (not counting however many months audiences may have waited to see how the story ends).

Loyalty — to the crown, to one another, but not necessarily to the source material — remains the driving theme of director Martin Bourboulon’s blockbuster treatment, which tapped French megastars Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmaï and Romain Duris as titular trio Athos, Porthos and Aramis. The second film opens with fourth musketeer D’Artagnan (François Civil) in a coffin, though he’s not dead, merely captured by traitors who...

French director Bertrand Bonello is rightly back in the imaginations of U.S. cinephiles, as his new film “The Beast” is now playing stateside. The time-hopping sci-fi romantic drama starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay as would-be lovers across centuries had the biggest opening weekend yet for distributor Sideshow/Janus Films earlier this month. Now, Bertrand Bonello’s previously undistributed 2022 film “Coma” is finally joining “The Beast” at theaters beginning in May from Film Movement. Watch the trailer for “Coma,” an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Combining live-action and animation, “Coma” centers on a teenage girl in lockdown amid a global health crisis (cough cough) who develops a disturbing relationship with a YouTuber. The cast features Louise Labèque, Julia Faure, Gaspard Ulliel, Laetitia Casta, Vincent Lacoste, Louis Garrel, and Anaïs Demoustier. This was the last film Ulliel worked on before he died in January 2022 after a skiing accident. Ulliel was meant to...

The Official Selection for the 77th Cannes Film Festival was revealed Thursday, with 19 movies in Competition (see full lists below).

Familiar names who will launch new works in the Competition include Ali Abbasi, who brings The Apprentice, a feature pic about the early life of Donald Trump. Andrea Arnold returns with Bird, starring Barry Keoghan, and Jacques Audiard’s latest, Emilia Perez, a musical with Selena Gomez will also debut in competition.

Elsewhere, American filmmaker Sean Baker brings Anora to the Croisette. Poor Things filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos will launch Kinds of Kindness, his latest collab with Emma Stone. David Cronenberg returns with The Shrouds, and Paul Schrader will debut Oh Canada starring Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman and Richard Gere.

Related: ‘The Apprentice’: First Look At Sebastian Stan As Donald Trump & Jeremy Strong As Roy Cohn In Cannes Competition Film

There’s a strong English-language and American presence in the...

Welcome back, Insider crew. Jesse Whittock taking you through another eventful week in film and TV. Let’s begin.

Drama In UK Drama ‘This Is Going to Hurt’

Antitrust the process: Not great news for the UK’s fabled TV drama community this week as we brought news that the antitrust investigation spooking producers will be prolonged for at least six months – and likely far longer. A reminder: the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) probe is examining whether BBC Studios, ITV Studios and four other storied indies colluded by informally fixing freelancers’ wage rates. The extension will see the CMA implement “further investigatory steps” and assessment of evidence” for the next six months, and those Max spoke with said the authority has an enormous wealth of evidence to get through. “Stressed” and “jittery” was the vibe described by one connected source about those being probed, who now face months...

Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, best known for his 2023 feature The Beasts, has been announced as jury president for this year’s edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

The parallel Cannes section devoted to emerging talents and first and second features will unfold from May 15 to 23 this year.

“It is a big responsibility, which I look forward to,” Sorogoyen said in a video statement on X, formerly Twitter, announcing his presidency.

“La Semaine de la Critique supports and rewards first and second feature films as well as short films, thus providing vital support to cinema, new voices, and new ways to tell stories. Without these new voices, there would be no new cinema. They’re the ones who make it live and make it work.”

Rodrigo Sorogoyen sera le Président du Jury de la 63e Semaine de la Critique ! À cette occasion, le réalisateur de "Que Dios nos perdone", "El Reino" ou...