Annette Opens 74th Festival de Cannes

©YesICannes.com

The 74th Festival de Cannes continues its legend: after a glamorous Red Carpet, star-studded with international stars, the Opening Ceremony kicked off the competition with the screening of Leos Carax’s Annette.

Festival de Cannes 2021: the Competition Jury, chaired this year by the American militant director Spike Lee, was welcomed on the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals by the Master of Ceremonies, the actress Doria Tillier. More than 1,800 feature films have been submitted to the Official Selection. Some twenty films are competing in the Official Competition. The competition for the Caméra d’or brings together 26 feature films from the Official Selection, the Critics’ Week and the Directors’ Fortnight.

Jodie Foster ©YesICannes.com

A summer festival

The 74th edition of the Cannes Festival was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. The organisers resigned themselves to publishing a list of 56 feature films in its “2020 Official Selection”. A symbolic edition was even held in the autumn at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes with the screening of four films from this selection. This year, the Festival’s organisers have opted for an edition not from 11 to 22 May as usual but from 6 to 17 July. Thanks to a series of strict sanitary measures implemented by the organisers (notably a sanitary pass), the Festival will be held this year under almost normal conditions.

The Prize List to be unveiled on 17 July

Under the presidency of Spike Lee, the (very feminine) jury, composed of five women and three men from the five continents, will select the winners of the various prizes from the 24 films in the Official Competition 2021, and will unveil the prize list on 17 July, which, we are sure, will, as every year, be a delightful surprise to everyone.
The members of the Festival de Cannes 2021 Jury are: Spike Lee – President (Director, producer, screenwriter – USA): Mati Diop (Director – France, Senegal); Mylène Farmer (Writer, performer – Canada, France); Maggie Gyllenhaal (Actress, producer, writer, director – USA); Jessica Hausner (Director, producer, writer – Austria); Mélanie Laurent (Actress, director, screenwriter – France); Kleber Mendonça Filho (Director, producer, screenwriter – Brazil); Tahar Rahim (Actor – France); Song Kang-ho (Actor – South Korea).

An actress to open the Cannes Festival

 On the stage of the nicest cinema in the world, the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals, actress Doria Tillier hosted the opening night of the great annual meeting of the 7th art. Doria Tillier has already walked the Red Carpet: she starred in Nicolas Bedos’ comedy-drama La Belle Epoque, presented out of competition in 2019.
The Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar – president of the jury in 2017 – presented the honorary Palme d’Or to Jodie Foster in company of Bong Joon Ho, 2019 Palme d’or with Parasite.
The opening ceremony, broadcast live, free-to-air and exclusively on Canal+, was followed by the screening of Annette, a musical drama by Leos Carax, with Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver in the lead roles. It is the first film in the selection to open the competition for the Palme d’Or.

www.festival-cannes.com