Top Gun: Maverick, Addiction to Speed

Actors of Top Gun : Maverick ©YesICannes.com

Kirill Serebrennikov’s Zhena Chaikovskogo opende the race for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, while Tom Cruise caused a stir with Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the 1986 cult film.

Cannes Film Festival 2022: Opening yesterday in (macabre) humour with Michel Hazanavicius‘ Final Cut, the 75th edition saw the official competition open with Kirill Serebrennikov‘s Zhena Chaikovskogo, finally present in Cannes. Tom Cruise‘s presence created a sensation on the Croisette, greeted by the Patrouille de France as he was walking on the Red Carpet of Top Gun: Maverick, as much to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the world’s greatest cultural event as an acrobatic nod to the Hollywood star’s adrenaline-fuelled adventures in the skies above.

Kirill Serebrennikov ©DR

Serebrennikov, finally the Red Carpet

Zhena Chaikovskogo, the film by Kirill Serebrennikov, was presented on the Croisette by the Russian director, who was finally able to walk the red carpet after so many years under house arrest. Kirill Serebrennikov, a gifted agitator of consciences who was facing legal troubles, accused of embezzling 130 million roubles of public funds, was under house arrest since 2017. He has never stopped claiming his innocence while continuing to make films, and finally exiled to Berlin.
With Leto, in competition in 2018, he evoked the emancipation of Russian youth through the emergence of Soviet rock in the 1980s on the music scene in post-Brejnev Leningrad.

Zhena Chaikovskogo ©Hype Film

Against the war in Ukraine

Last year, he returned to the Competition with Petrov’s Flu, a study of today’s society, a reflection on the human condition through the wacky and rather ethylic story of an alienated Russian family. The film was adapted from Alexei Salnikov‘s novel The Petrovs, the Flu, etc., which shook the country with its audacity and sense of the absurd. While the Cannes Film Festival has officially declared any representative or supporter of the official Kremlin line persona non grata, Serebrennikov’s visit to Cannes, who has taken a stand against Putin’s war (his mother is Ukrainian), takes on a political dimension after Volodymyr Zelesnky‘s video conference intervention at the opening ceremony.

Zhena Chaikovskogo ©Hype Film

Tchaikovsky’s wife

Shot in a rather dark light, Zhena Chaikovskogo is about the tormenting love affair of Antonina Miliukova, a wealthy and brilliant young woman who married the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 19th century Russia. Tchaikovsky is said to have married Antonina Miliukova as a cover to hide his homosexuality. But her one-sided love for the composer turns into an obsession and the young woman is violently rejected. Consumed by her feelings, Antonina agrees to endure everything to stay with him. With Odin Lund Biron, Alyona Mikhailova, Ekaterina Ermishina.

Get on board an F-18 Super Hornet!

On screens around the world, Top Gun hero Maverick will soon be taking thrill seekers on board his F-18 for action spectacle. But Tom Cruise has only made a single appearance on the Croisette, on 18 May 1992, for the presentation of Ron Howard‘s film Distant Horizons, which was screened at the closing ceremony of the 45th Festival. On that occasion, during the closing ceremony, he presented the Palme d’Or to director Bille August for his film The Best Intentions.
Thirty years later to the day, on 18 May 2022, the Cannes Film Festival paid him an exceptional tribute for his entire career during this special day. Tom Cruise gave a master class in front of an audience of a thousand people, defending the cinema in theatres, public screenings where he goes, hidden under a cap for incognito.

Tom Cruise special instructor

Aviator Pete (Maverick) Mitchell takes to the control column again, jet engine at full throttle, for breathtaking aerial adventures in a film by Joseph Kosinski, the director who is a master of computer generated imagery. The pilot who refuses to rise in rank to continue flying will be in charge of training young Top Gun pilots for a veeeery special mission (but not impossible!).
For the filming, Tom Cruise required the actors to do gymnastics, strenuous water dives, and to learn the sensations of flying, first on a propeller plane and then on L-39 jets for the thrill of acrobatics. In addition, the actors had to learn to film themselves in their cockpits for certain scenes.

Avant première at the Cannes Film Festival

Screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman and Ed Harris, will be released in France on May 25th and in the USA on May 27th. The soundtrack is performed by Lady Gaga.