Flag Day, Family Epic at Festival de Cannes

Dylan Penn, Sean Penn & Bailey Noble ©YesICannes.com

The fifth day of competition at the Festival de Cannes saw the screening of Juho Kuosmanen’s Hytti Nro 6 (Compartment No. 6) and Sean Penn’s Flag Day.

Five years after “taking a beating at Cannes” (in his words) as director of The Last Face, the huge American star Sean Penn is back in the running for the Palme d’Or with Flag Day, a film inspired by a true story, in which he plays alongside his daughter and son. Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen is in the Official Competition for the first time with Hytti Nro 6 (Compartment No. 6), a closed-door film that takes place aboard a Russian train bound for the Arctic.

Flag Day, a true story

Sean Penn presents Flag Day, a film based on the true story of John Vogel. For the first time in one of his films, the two-time Oscar-winning actor plays the lead role alongside his own daughter, 30-year-old Dylan Penn. Flag Day is about an unusual character who, like a father, amazes his daughter Jennifer with his charisma, offering her opportunities to experience life as a great adventure, full of love and joy. But Jennifer will discover her father’s secret life as a bank robber and forger.

One of the greatest forgers

Flag Day is the film adaptation of Flim-Flam Man, Jennifer Vogel’s memoir of her tumultuous relationship with her father, John Vogel, one of the greatest bank robbers and swindlers in American history, in late 20th century Minneapolis. More than twenty years of John Vogel’s life are depicted on screen, alongside Jennifer Vogel’s rise to fame as a writer and journalist. The journalist must investigate one of the largest counterfeiting operations in American history, actually committed by her father, whose double life will put the father-daughter relationship at risk.

Family spirit

The Vogels’ family saga is combined with that of the Penn family: for his sixth film, Sean Penn, in front of and behind the camera, chose his daughter Dylan Penn, who plays Jennifer, to illustrate the authenticity and complexity of a father-daughter relationship. In addition, Jennifer’s brother is played by Hopper Jack Penn, Sean’s son.
First appearing in competition as a performer in 1997, with Nick Cassavetes’ She’s so lovely – which won him the Best Actor Award – the Festival de Cannes welcomed Sean Penn into Competition as a director with The Indian Runner in 2000, The Pledge in 2001 and The Last Face in 2016.

Road movie in the Arctic

Winner of the First Prize of the Cinéfondation in 2010 for Taulukauppiaat (The Painting Sellers), Juho Kuosmanen won the Un Certain Regard Award in 2016 with Hymyilevä Mies (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki), his first feature film.
Forced to live with a passenger in the cramped compartment No. 6 of a train from Moscow to the Arctic, the archaeologist Laura (Seidi Haarla) is confronted with the drunken comments of the Russian miner (Yuri Borisov). The two characters, who are at odds with each other, must put aside their prejudices and confront their inner truths…

Catherine Deneuve ©YesICannes.com

Catherine Deneuve back on the Red Carpet

A legend of the cinema, Catherine Deneuve (77) makes her return onto the Red Carpet for Emmanuelle Bercot‘s De son vivant, a year and a half after a vascular accident on the set of this film. A regular at the Croisette, the iconic French actress with 140 films had presented the Palme d’Or to South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho for his film Parasite in 2019. Catherine Deneuve first walked the Red Carpet 57 years ago for Jacques Demy‘s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which won the Palme d’Or in 1964.