Cultural meeting

In Cannes, Critics' Week highlights the actors of tomorrow

Audio 02:31

The team of the film “Tirailleurs”: director Mathieu Vadepied alongside actors Omar Sy, Alassane Diong and Jonas Bloquet during the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, May 19, 2022. © AFP / CHRISTOPHE SIMON

By: Sophie Torlotin Follow

3 mins

Head to Cannes, where the International Film Festival is held until Saturday May 28.

Sophie Torlotin lets us hear the impressions of young directors or actors who are coming to the Croisette for the first time.

Advertisement

The success of a Cannes Film Festival is often due to a skilful alchemy.

The combination of experience and novelty, of regulars on the Croisette and newcomers.

La Semaine de la Critique is dedicated to discovering young talent by exclusively selecting first or second films.

This Friday, it's a first attempt in the form of a punch, on a young teenager placed in a home, which should make people talk: " 

Dalva

 " by Emmanuelle Nicot.

The radiant 36-year-old director feels no pressure, and for good reason: “ 

It's the very first Cannes of my life, because I've never been there as a spectator either.

And I confess that I have never followed the events happening in Cannes too much.

I am very, very happy with this selection for the Week, and then I started telling the people on my team, I also sent emails to all the people who took part, whether they were people who were extras or silhouettes, and then everyone started saying to me: "I hope you'll bring something back, fingers crossed".

Well, I come here but I don't even have the pressure to bring anything back, in fact, it's

A first full of emotion for the young actors

Premiere in Cannes also for the young actor Alassane Diong.

At 25, he bursts the screen in

Tirailleurs

.

The young actor is still very moved by the memory of the moment when the artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, had him cheered by the spectators by taking his arm.

“ 

I'm all exhilarated, it's my first time there and I'm shaking.

I was watching

The Lion King

 to prepare for the film, it was my reference.

And when Thierry Frémaux takes my hand, it was a bit like Rafiki.

 »

More accustomed to interviews, already awarded at various festivals, Adam Bessa is also walking the red carpet of the Palais des Festivals for the first time.

In

Harka

, he plays a gasoline salesman dreaming of a better life.

The 31-year-old actor is the voice of a hopeless Tunisian youth, ten years after the Arab Spring.

“ 

Me, it's true that I have all my family there, so I know this Tunisia.

The way I worked on it was in that sense in any case, to tell myself that I had a responsibility to try to get the right message across and to be really fair and to the truth of what these people may be feeling.

And in general, when we talk about subjects like poverty, we can tend to want to make certain people feel guilty because they are better off or not.

It's really nobody's fault.

This is what this person feels, we feel things and it is even stronger than words.

 »

But there is no age to innovate.

The veteran of the competition, the Polish Jerzy Skolimowski, 84, surprises with a film whose main actor is a donkey: " 

Hi-Han

 " looks at the world and makes us aware of its cruelty.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

  • Culture

  • Cannes 2022

  • Movie theater