Celebs have descended on the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival.
“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” star Lily Gladstone, Eva Green and more members of the festival’s jury this year had dinner on Tuesday night at the swanky Hotel Martinez ahead of the official opening.
Meryl Streep will be given an honorary Palme D’Or on Wednesday night as the fest kicks off with the French movie, “Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act),” directed by Quentin Dupieux’s and starring Léa Seydoux.
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the closing ceremony.
Among the big movies set to draw in crowds are Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” starring Zendaya, Adam Driver and Shia LaBeouf, and the latest “Mad Max” movie, “Furiosa,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth that premieres out of competition and will be followed by a big party to celebrate.
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s latest collaboration, “Kinds of Kindness,” is also debuting at the fest, along with Paul Schrader’s “Oh Canada,” starring “Saltburn” hunk Jacob Elordi and Uma Thurman.
Selena Gomez will be making the Riviera rounds for Jacques Audiard’s musical crime comedy, “Emilia Perez,” with Zoe Saldaña. And Barry Keoghan, hot off “Saltburn,” stars in “Bird.”
Among other notable films, “The Apprentice” takes on Donald Trump with Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan starring in the film that, “charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.”
Away from the screens, there is some industry dread looming over this year’s festival, with French media reporting that a list of 12 actors and directors will be hit with #MeToo allegations during the fest.
“French cinema is in a cold sweat,” said a headline in Le Figaro, which also claimed that the fest is so worried they’ve hired a crisis PR team.
But festival president Iris Knobloch said last week in an interview with Paris Match that if someone with a movie playing the festival is named, their film will not immediately be disqualified.
“We’re extremely attentive to what is happening today, and we’re following the situation closely,” she said. “If the case of a person being implicated should arise, we will take care to make the right decision on a case-by-case basis, in consultation with the board and all the involved parties. But we would also consider the work to see what is best for it. It is the real star.”
French actress and activist Judith Godrèche, who has revived the #MeToo movement overseas, will have her film “Moi Aussi,” play the Un Certain Regard selection at the festival.
Gerwig addressed the issues during a press conference, saying, “I have seen substantive change in the American film community, and I think it’s important that we continue to expand that conversation. So I think it’s only moving everything in the correct direction. Keep those lines of communication open.”
She added, “I would say there were very many concrete changes that have happened in the American film industry. The one I always think of is the rise of intimacy coordinators, and that is not something when I was starting out that happened at all, and it’s now being built into films.”
There is also an impending strike as Cannes festival workers have threatened to stop working over pay and labor disputes.
Fest organizers have said they hope “solutions will be found.”
