Cannes Film Festival in its 75th session..a little cinema, a lot of politics

There is a perception that can be deduced from just looking at the official poster accompanying the 75th session of the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off this week of a man looking ahead, ascending some stairs against a background of bright colors that make the viewer feel a more spacious life after only 10 months separated the beginning This season compared to its previous cycle, which was not very reliable, and fears almost ended the rise of the right in the French presidential elections, which ended a while ago.

The same perception was confirmed by the festival's general press conference when the general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, said that this year's session "will not be just a big screen for showing films only, but a tireless attempt to preserve the memory of cinema and the world, which will take care of the festival's present and its future, not its past."

In a clear indication of the view that the festival wants to convey by ridding it of private and public nostalgia, and perhaps forgetting the heavy-historic two years of Corona in exchange for remembering the enormity of the Russian war on Ukraine.

Basically, the first session of the festival - the most international among the various festivals - bore in its heart a political character that seems to be continuing until now, despite the claims of some that it ended, when its first session was postponed due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The French to face the dangers of what was going on inside the city of Berlin and Rome at the time.

And let not everyone forget that Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Italy Benito Mussolini gave close attention to cinema, and relied on it as a tool for political propaganda and presenting ideas to be passed, and giving it public legitimacy, no matter how radical, they presented it with all the possibilities its makers wanted, and the French festival came out as a model for jealousy of that political reality. dominant.

The festival stopped holding 3 times, one of which was between 1948 and 1950 due to budget problems and then in 1968 due to the outbreak of the student and youth revolution in what was known as the Paris Spring.

At that time, Italian star Monica Fetti resigned from the jury, followed by other judges, and a number of filmmakers stormed the festival hall, including Louis Malle, François Truffaut, Claude Berry, Jean-Gabriel Albikoko, Claude Lelouch, Roman Polanski, and Jean-Luc Godard, They demanded to stop the performances in solidarity with the striking workers and students, so the festival stopped and no prizes were awarded.

Finally, when the 73rd session scheduled for May 2020, was canceled due to the Corona pandemic, while last year’s session was held exceptionally from the sixth of July to the 17th of the same month, 2021, apparently for political reasons, whether direct or indirect.

And now, after a war still going on;

The festival declared a complete boycott of the Russian state and the artists and makers in its heart, as well as refusing to grant any press accreditation requests to any Russian journalist in the national newspapers. His agency was a reaction to "the Russian barbarism that took place in Ukraine."

cinematic confrontations

We have approximately 22 films in the official program of the festival competing for the Palme d'Or and other festival awards, and a large number of veteran directors who have won a Golden Palm or more, will face young directors who have achieved great achievements in recent years, during which they won many awards and films that most movie lovers await. As we see in a large number of these films a remarkable political presence.

A large number of audiences are waiting for works such as the Japanese film "Center" by director Hirokazu Kore-eda, which won before for "shoplifters", and everyone is waiting for "The Triangle of Sorrow" by Robin Ostolund, the maker of the film "The Square", which won many awards at the time of its release, In addition to the film by international director James Gray, "The Time of Resurrection", which the largest number of followers wanted to see.

Arabic presence

We also have a remarkable Arab presence with 6 films, including the film by director Ali Abbasi, who is participating in the Belgian competition, Lucas Donnet, with their film "Holy Spider" about the story of a religious extremist seeking to cleanse his place of prostitutes, in addition to the film "Boy from Heaven" by the Swedish Egyptian Tariq Saleh. Which is likely to provoke religious and political controversy, and which dealt before that "The Nile Hilton Incident", and it was banned in Egypt, and "A Boy from Heaven" was banned alongside the Iranian movie "Leila's Brothers" directed by Ali Rosati, and there are political messages in most of these films.

Russian exception

The most striking point was the competition of the Russian director Kirill Serebrenkov with his film "Tchaikovsky's Wife", which tells the biography of the famous musician. This film and its director topped the story only because he was banned from traveling in the past three years;

He even showed him two films "Summer" and "Petrov Fever" without his presence, while he was under house arrest for opposing the Russian regime.

And political director Sergei Loznista, known for his films against Russian interference, presents the movie "The Natural History of Destruction", in addition to the movie "Maripolis 2", whose director Mantas Kvidaravicius was killed months ago by Russian forces, after his girlfriend ran away with the film, which the festival agreed to show at the festival before the start of the festival at least From a week ago.

The director Hana Bello also presents her film, which tells of a previous rehearsal and internal indications about the current war in Ukraine, and there is a crude political discourse in the film, which presents Russia as a war criminal who must bear the pain of many peoples alongside the Ukrainian people who destroyed her.

And it seems that the political influence on the issue of war has become noticeably present or controlling choices and trends, the most of which was the makers' move to change the name of the movie "Z" to the movie "Last Version", which caused confusion to the distributors who justified that because the name "Z" was used. Russian forces on the move, although this is a comedy that has nothing to do with the war entirely.

The overwhelming majority supports boycotting the most famous festival of Russia, which committed unfair massacres during the past months, while a few are trying to re-present the hypothesis with a denouncing question about the intense interest that appeared in exchange for a previous neglect of other situations that may be similar, whether inside or outside Europe, and see them as perhaps an outbidding More political than it deserves, but the largest cinematic demonstration still carries, in addition to its greater political dimension, some films that many await from year to year.