Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton: today is the day of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City . But it is also Marco Bellocchio’s day with his Rapito.
From Cannes Vocea Europei brings us the latest news and updates on the Cannes Film Festival 2023.
TITLES IN COMPETITION
Miss Novak is the new entry of an international boarding school, where she arrives to hold a course on conscious eating. She teaches that eating less is good. The other teachers are unable to understand what is happening, neither are the parents, and in less than no time Club Zero is a reality: this is the plot of Club Zero, the film that opens today’s Cannes Film Festival. Anatomie d’une chute, Anatomy of a fall tells the story of Sandra, Samuel and their blind son Daniel: when Samuel is found dead outside his home, an investigation into a death under suspicious circumstances is launched. Sandra is indicted, and Daniel is forced to attend the trial.
Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people, who meet by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, one and only love of their lives. Their path to this honorable goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost telephone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and the general tendency of life to place obstacles in the way of those who seek happiness. Banel and Adama are madly in love. They live in a village in northern Senegal, but their perfect love contradicts the customs of the community: all this happens in Benel & Adama. Twenty years after his notorious romance took the country by storm, a married couple buckle under pressure when an actress arrives, determined to do research to make a film about the story, according to the American May December.
In blood-soaked Tudor England, Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, is appointed regent while her tyrant husband fights overseas. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, he turns his fury on the radicals, accusing Katherine’s childhood friend of treason and burning her at the stake. Horrified and pained, Katherine finds herself fighting for her survival. These are the events narrated in Firebrand. Wes Anderson’s highly anticipated Asteroid City boasts an exceptional cast: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton. The film is set in the fifties, in the fictional city of Asteroid City, where a series of events change the stories of the characters. The day ends with Rapito by Marco Bellocchio . The film is inspired by the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a case of kidnapping that actually happened in the mid-19th century: the little boy was taken by the soldiers of Pope Pius IX, so that he could be given a Catholic education. His parents, however, will not give up.
OUT OF COMPETITION
Project Silence is a story of people struggling to survive against an unexpected threat while trapped on the collapsing airport bridge, immersed in a thick fog that makes it impossible to see.
A CERTAIN REGARD
Set in Chile, at the beginning of the 20th century, Los Colonos (The Settlers) is the story of a wealthy landowner who hires three horsemen to delimit the perimeter of his vast property, and to open a route to the Atlantic Ocean through Patagonia. The expedition, made up of a young Chilean, an American mercenary and a reckless British lieutenant, soon turns into a “civilizing” raid. Through the eyes of his daughter, Patpro travels through three periods of indigenous history in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Tirelessly persecuted, but guided by their ancestral rites, their love of nature and the struggle to preserve freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance: is the synopsis of Crowra (The Buriti Flower).
If only I could hibernate is about a poor but proud teenager. Physics genius, he is determined to win a scientific competition to get a scholarship. But when his mother finds work in the countryside, he is forced to take on a hard job to heat the house and provide for his siblings. Omen is an ensemble film about four people accused of being witches and sorcerers. Despite their misfortune, they find ways to steer each other away from their socially enforced destinies. Ayeh Haye Zamini (Terrestrial Verses) follows ordinary people from all walks of life as they grapple with the cultural, religious and institutional constraints imposed by social authorities. In The Breaking Ice, young Haofeng comes to Shanghai from a very small Chinese village. When he takes part in a tour of the charming Nana, he meets Xiao, a restaurant employee: the three bond quickly, and talk about traumas, desires and the desire to free themselves from a “frozen world”.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
In As Filhas do Fogo (The Daughters of Fire) three young sisters are separated by the eruption of the Fogo. But they sing: “One day we will know why we live and why we suffer…”. The future of Marguerite, a brilliant student of mathematics at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, seems all planned. The only woman of her course, she is finishing a thesis that she must present to an audience of researchers. On D-day, a mistake shakes all her certainties and all her foundations collapse. This is the plot of Le Théorème de Marguerite (Marguerite’s Theorem). Wang Xilin, 86, is one of China’s foremost modern classical composers. During the Cultural Revolution he was subjected to severe persecution, beatings, imprisonment and torture. Mam in black shows the body and soul of a man scarred by a life of suffering, a “man in black” who is still capable of deep and sincere compassion.
CANNES PREMIERE
A famous Spanish actor, Julio Arenas, goes missing while shooting a movie. Although his body is never found, the police conclude that he was the victim of an accident at sea. Many years later, the mystery surrounding his disappearance is brought to the fore. This is the plot of Cerrar Los Ojos (Close your eyes). Pierre Bonnard would not be the famous painter that everyone knows without the enigmatic Marthe, who appears in more than a third of his works: this is what Bonnard tells Pierre and Marthe. Return To Reason celebrates the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s cinematic oeuvre, restored to 4K for the first time. Kubi is set in the 16th century when warlords fought for control of Japan. Lord Oda Nobunaga, intent on controlling Japan, is waging a war against several clans when one of his vassals, Araki Murashige, organizes a rebellion and disappears.
CANNES CLASSICS
Classic of 1934, Ces Messieurs de la Santé tells the story of Taffard, banker and financial genius. He knows that money goes where there’s a chance it will multiply. All you need is a little courage and a little luck. In 1983, the two directors Bertrand Tavernier and Robert Parrish roam Mississippi in search of the spirit of music and local society. Mississippi Blues tells it.
