Les Films de Cannes Festival returns to Iași this year and aims, as always, to bring to the public for the first time the major and most awarded films of the year, but adapting to the current health situation so as to provide access to films in conditions of safety and comfort. Les Films de Cannes à Iași will take place between 22 and 24 October at Cinema Ateneu and will have as special guests Irina Margareta Nistor and Teodora Ana Mihai, the director of the film La Civil, which will close this year’s edition.
Cannes Film Festival resumed this year after a cancelled edition in 2020, due to the pandemic, being organised in August and benefiting from a wide selection of films, as a result of the cancellation of the previous edition. The jury, led by the eccentric filmmaker Spike Lee, was star-studded with members such as Mylène Farmer, Mélanie Laurent, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Song Kang-Ho. Renowned filmmakers have returned to Cannes this year, great films as well as surprises at the award ceremony have been abundant, and Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest will bring an incredible selection of the award-winning films for the first time in Romania: Titane, the Palme d’Or winner, A Hero, winner of Grand Prix, Memoria, which has been awarded with Prix du Jury, Drive my car, Best Screenplay and FIPRESCI Award and The Worse Person in the World, winner of the Best Actress Award.
The winner of Palme d’Or, TITANE, the second film of Julia Ducournau, sparked a wave of shocking reactions even before its screening, with an intriguing poster, a colourful trailer and a bizarre synopsis: „after a series of unexplained murders, a father reunited with his son who disappeared 10 years ago. Titane is the French word for titanium, a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys.”
The film approaches violence as “the beginning of something important, like a shaking of very stiff foundations”, says its director. It also examines the themes of parentage and love or, to be more precise, of how love is born. Upon being awarded with the coveted Palme d’Or, the filmmaker said: “There is so much beauty, emotion and freedom to be found in what cannot be put in a box. Thank you to the jury for the call for more diversity in our cinema experiences and in our lives. Thanks for letting the monsters in.” Like the jury, the film critics were stunned : „ the magic of Titane is also owed to the grace with which Ducournau threads the needle between clarity and madness, shock and recognition, throttle and clutch”, writes Indiewire. „Ducournau’s filmmaking is as pure as her themes are profane: Titane is gorgeous to look at, to listen to, to obsess over, and fetishize.” rejoices The Playlist.
Awarded with the Grand Prix, the second most important prize of the festival, A HERO, the most recent piece of Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, the special guest of the 10th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest, tells the story of Rahim who is in prison for an unpaid debt. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. Rahim is then faced with an excruciating crisis. His intimate and provocative stories about family conflicts have brought him the public’s appreciation the critics’ praise and many awards at international film festivals. Farhadi continues to garner admiration with A Hero, „a superb morality play that immerses us deeply in a society’s values and rituals and keeps us guessing right to its powerful final shot”, as conveyed by Time Out.
Best Actress Award was given to Renate Reinsve for her role in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, directed by Joachim Trier. The film closes the Oslo Trilogy of Joachim Trier with „the romantic drama for people who hate romantic dramas” (The Toronto Star), a film about the search for love and meaning set in contemporary Oslo. The film follows four years in the life of Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young woman who goes through romantic storms, struggles to make a career and tries to figure out, lucidly, who she really is. Slant Magazine writes that „the film may be the prime example of how to restore fun, significance, and even a little bit of sex to a well-worn genre”. Coming from a family of filmmakers, it is no surprise that Joachim Trier chose this path. But his style and finesse, his dense study of characters marked him as a new voice in European cinema, as can be seen in his films, Oslo, August 31st (2011) and Louder Than Bombs (2015), and, now, The Worst Person in the World, which will have its national premiere at the festival.
Few filmmakers can claim as convincingly as Jaques Audiard that they have cinema in their blood. Born in Paris, the director is the son of the famous screenwriter Michel Audiard. After enrolling at the Sorbonne to become a professor of literature and philosophy, he dropped out of school and joined a film crew as an assistant editor. Then he became a screenwriter famous for his ability to create distinct, visceral, and sometimes gloomy worlds with characters who invigorate common stories. His directorial debut, See How They Fall (1994) showed his creative force, a new voice of French cinema. The period film A Self-Made Hero (1996) won the award for Best Screenplay at Cannes. The Beat My Heart Skipped (2005) was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and A Prophet (2009) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. The drama Dheepan (2015) managed to claim its biggest trophy – Palme d’Or – at the same festival.
LES OLYMPIADES received at Cannes 2021 the award for best soundtrack. In the film, Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy – they are friends, sometimes lovers, most of the time both. This is Audiard’s attempt to usher in a new millennium wave, a sort of Jules et Jim with a synth-pop soundtrack, writes The Playlist.
Nanni Moretti, a revered master of the festival, built his reputation as an Italian Woody Allen thanks to an introspective mise-en-scene, with an irreverent humor, in which he played the lead role. Often a director and producer and screenwriter, this eccentric visionary has made a strong impression since the comic debut I Am Self Sufficient (1976) and has continued to excite with his distinctive blend of satire, surrealism and autobiographical themes in international hits such as La messa e finita (1984), Caro diario (1993) and Aprile (1998) which revealed deeper and deeper facets of his character. Moretti achieved the greatest commercial and critical success with La stanza del figlio (2001), winner of the Palme d’Or.
In 2021, Moretti returned with THREE FLOORS, the story about three families living in 3 apartments in the same luxury apartment complex, which was said to be an intriguing canvas that allows percussive observations, especially thanks to excellent interpretations from to the bright Margherita Buy, the hypnotic Rohrwacher and the debutante Denise Tantucci– Edge Media Network.
LES INTRANQUILLES, directed by Joachim Lafosse, selected in competition at Cannes this year, introduces us to Damien and his wife Leila, between whom there is a deep connection and a hard-tried love story. Damien is a bipolar artist prone to manic episodes, and Leila dedicates her life to him and their 8-year-old son. The two often find themselves in the middle of conflicts in which neither of them wants to be, caused by Damien’s illness and resolved by Leila’s understanding.
„The director’s misión is to focus on the characters”, said the Belgian filmmaker. An important figure in contemporary cinema, Joachim Lafosse experienced a growing reputation from one film to another (such as À Perdre la Raison, presented in Un Certain Regard, a section in which Emilie Dequenne won the Best Actress award). His filmography is marked by monstrous characters whose motivations he tries to understand in films with hard and complex, if not taboo subjects. At the heart of his works we often find psychotic characters who, wanting to do good, sow the seeds of evil. It’s all a matter of limits in À Perdre la raison, Folie privée or Nue propriété
Les Films de Cannes à Iași 2021 se va închide cu proiecția filmului LA CIVIL distins anul acesta la Cannes în Secțiunea Un Certain Regard cu Prix de l’Audace. Regizoarea Teodora Ana Mihai va fi prezentă la Iași unde se va întâlni cu publicul, duminică, 24 octombrie.
La Civil is a Belgian-Romanian-Mexican co-production, the film being endorsed by the production houses of some well-known authors in Cannes: Les Films du Fleuve of the Dardenne Brothers, Mobra Films of Cristian Mungiu and Michel Franco’s Theorem. The film was selected in the competitions of the Cannes and Venice festivals, and following its August premiere, it was invited to 15 other international festivals.
The production took place in extremely difficult conditions, being filmed in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, in Durango, Mexico, the director having the strength to manage the film, health conditions, and her new role as a mother.
According to Screen Daily, La Civil “paints a compelling picture of a society in which nobody can be trusted and everyone is complicit in a neverending cyle of violence“ – the story being the result of several years of extensive research undertaken by the director in collaboration with Mexican writer Habacuc Antonio de Rosario.
The film is inspired by a heartbreaking true story, a ransom in a Mexican society where clans are above law and authorities. Starting from the real case, in La Civil the director tells the story of Cielo, a mother who is looking for her daughter, who was kidnapped by the members of a drug cartel. As the authorities fail to help her, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and gradually turns from housewife into a vengeful activist.
In addition to the programme in the cinema halls, spectators will be able to enjoy this year’s online programme of the festival which will soon be available on www.filmedefestival.ro
Evoking the statement of general delegate of Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux, the 12th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest aims „to bring cinema back to life, to protect artists, to showcase the starts and to help the industry. It is a universal vision. Cinema is never uniform, it changes, it improves and all the festivals must adapt. The festival supports the cinema, and this needs cinema halls. The film theatre hasn’t had its last word yet. The multiplication of platforms around the world means that, as time goes by, traditional cinema halls will prove their unique strength”.
Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest is presented by Orange România, traditional partner of the event.
Inspired by: UniCredit Bank
With support from: Sun Wave Pharma, Apa Nova, Groupama, Dacin Sara, Mercure Hotels, Catena
A cultural Project financed by: Ministry of Culture and National Identity, Romanian Film Center, Iași City Hall, Iași Athenaeum, Iași Culture Centre, SACD, French Embassy in Romania and French Institute in Romania.
Official car: Renault
Festival’s coffee: Nespresso
Partners: Iași Athenaeum, Unirea Hotel & Spa, Federația Industriei Hoteliere din România, Avanpost, Multimedia Est, Europa Cinemas, Serve, Eventbook
Main media partners: Radio Guerrilla, TVR, Agerpres
Media partners: Zile și Nopți, Cinemap, Cinemagia, Ziarul Metropolis, Film Menu, iQAds, Smark, Movie News, LiterNet, The Institute, ELLE, Senso TV, Tonica, AARC, CineGhid, Munteanu, Films in Frame, Radio România Cultural, Blitz TV, Dentsu, Igloo
Partener cultural: RFI România
Local media partners: Radio România Iași, Ziarul de Iași, Iași TV Life, Viva FM, HIT Radio
Les Films de Cannes à Iași is organised by Asociația Cinemascop and Voodoo Films.
Iași, 19 octombrie 2021
Titane, winner of the Palme d’Or 2021, at Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest a Iași
The festival takes place at Cinema Ateneu between 22 and 24 October in compliance with all the public health measures
The Les Films de Cannes Festival returns to Iași this year and aims, as always, to bring to the public for the first time the major and most awarded films of the year, but adapting to the current health situation so as to provide access to films in conditions of safety and comfort. Les Films de Cannes à Iași will take place between 22 and 24 October at Cinema Ateneu and will have as special guests Irina Margareta Nistor and Teodora Ana Mihai, the director of the film La Civil, which will close this year’s edition.
Cannes Film Festival resumed this year after a cancelled edition in 2020, due to the pandemic, being organised in August and benefiting from a wide selection of films, as a result of the cancellation of the previous edition. The jury, led by the eccentric filmmaker Spike Lee, was star-studded with members such as Mylène Farmer, Mélanie Laurent, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Song Kang-Ho. Renowned filmmakers have returned to Cannes this year, great films as well as surprises at the award ceremony have been abundant, and Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest will bring an incredible selection of the award-winning films for the first time in Romania: Titane, the Palme d’Or winner, A Hero, winner of Grand Prix, Memoria, which has been awarded with Prix du Jury, Drive my car, Best Screenplay and FIPRESCI Award and The Worse Person in the World, winner of the Best Actress Award.
The winner of Palme d’Or, TITANE, the second film of Julia Ducournau, sparked a wave of shocking reactions even before its screening, with an intriguing poster, a colourful trailer and a bizarre synopsis: „after a series of unexplained murders, a father reunited with his son who disappeared 10 years ago. Titane is the French word for titanium, a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys.”
The film approaches violence as “the beginning of something important, like a shaking of very stiff foundations”, says its director. It also examines the themes of parentage and love or, to be more precise, of how love is born. Upon being awarded with the coveted Palme d’Or, the filmmaker said: “There is so much beauty, emotion and freedom to be found in what cannot be put in a box. Thank you to the jury for the call for more diversity in our cinema experiences and in our lives. Thanks for letting the monsters in.” Like the jury, the film critics were stunned : „ the magic of Titane is also owed to the grace with which Ducournau threads the needle between clarity and madness, shock and recognition, throttle and clutch”, writes Indiewire. „Ducournau’s filmmaking is as pure as her themes are profane: Titane is gorgeous to look at, to listen to, to obsess over, and fetishize.” rejoices The Playlist.
Awarded with the Grand Prix, the second most important prize of the festival, A HERO, the most recent piece of Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, the special guest of the 10th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest, tells the story of Rahim who is in prison for an unpaid debt. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. Rahim is then faced with an excruciating crisis. His intimate and provocative stories about family conflicts have brought him the public’s appreciation the critics’ praise and many awards at international film festivals. Farhadi continues to garner admiration with A Hero, „a superb morality play that immerses us deeply in a society’s values and rituals and keeps us guessing right to its powerful final shot”, as conveyed by Time Out.
Best Actress Award was given to Renate Reinsve for her role in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, directed by Joachim Trier. The film closes the Oslo Trilogy of Joachim Trier with „the romantic drama for people who hate romantic dramas” (The Toronto Star), a film about the search for love and meaning set in contemporary Oslo. The film follows four years in the life of Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young woman who goes through romantic storms, struggles to make a career and tries to figure out, lucidly, who she really is. Slant Magazine writes that „the film may be the prime example of how to restore fun, significance, and even a little bit of sex to a well-worn genre”. Coming from a family of filmmakers, it is no surprise that Joachim Trier chose this path. But his style and finesse, his dense study of characters marked him as a new voice in European cinema, as can be seen in his films, Oslo, August 31st (2011) and Louder Than Bombs (2015), and, now, The Worst Person in the World, which will have its national premiere at the festival.
Few filmmakers can claim as convincingly as Jaques Audiard that they have cinema in their blood. Born in Paris, the director is the son of the famous screenwriter Michel Audiard. After enrolling at the Sorbonne to become a professor of literature and philosophy, he dropped out of school and joined a film crew as an assistant editor. Then he became a screenwriter famous for his ability to create distinct, visceral, and sometimes gloomy worlds with characters who invigorate common stories. His directorial debut, See How They Fall (1994) showed his creative force, a new voice of French cinema. The period film A Self-Made Hero (1996) won the award for Best Screenplay at Cannes. The Beat My Heart Skipped (2005) was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and A Prophet (2009) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. The drama Dheepan (2015) managed to claim its biggest trophy – Palme d’Or – at the same festival.
LES OLYMPIADES received at Cannes 2021 the award for best soundtrack. In the film, Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy – they are friends, sometimes lovers, most of the time both. This is Audiard’s attempt to usher in a new millennium wave, a sort of Jules et Jim with a synth-pop soundtrack, writes The Playlist.
Nanni Moretti, a revered master of the festival, built his reputation as an Italian Woody Allen thanks to an introspective mise-en-scene, with an irreverent humor, in which he played the lead role. Often a director and producer and screenwriter, this eccentric visionary has made a strong impression since the comic debut I Am Self Sufficient (1976) and has continued to excite with his distinctive blend of satire, surrealism and autobiographical themes in international hits such as La messa e finita (1984), Caro diario (1993) and Aprile (1998) which revealed deeper and deeper facets of his character. Moretti achieved the greatest commercial and critical success with La stanza del figlio (2001), winner of the Palme d’Or.
In 2021, Moretti returned with THREE FLOORS, the story about three families living in 3 apartments in the same luxury apartment complex, which was said to be an intriguing canvas that allows percussive observations, especially thanks to excellent interpretations from to the bright Margherita Buy, the hypnotic Rohrwacher and the debutante Denise Tantucci– Edge Media Network.
LES INTRANQUILLES, directed by Joachim Lafosse, selected in competition at Cannes this year, introduces us to Damien and his wife Leila, between whom there is a deep connection and a hard-tried love story. Damien is a bipolar artist prone to manic episodes, and Leila dedicates her life to him and their 8-year-old son. The two often find themselves in the middle of conflicts in which neither of them wants to be, caused by Damien’s illness and resolved by Leila’s understanding.
„The director’s misión is to focus on the characters”, said the Belgian filmmaker. An important figure in contemporary cinema, Joachim Lafosse experienced a growing reputation from one film to another (such as À Perdre la Raison, presented in Un Certain Regard, a section in which Emilie Dequenne won the Best Actress award). His filmography is marked by monstrous characters whose motivations he tries to understand in films with hard and complex, if not taboo subjects. At the heart of his works we often find psychotic characters who, wanting to do good, sow the seeds of evil. It’s all a matter of limits in À Perdre la raison, Folie privée or Nue propriété
Les Films de Cannes à Iași 2021 will be closed by a screening of LA CIVIL, a film awarded with Courage Award in Un Certain Regard section. Filmmaker Teodora Ana Mihai will be presented at screening on Sunday, 24th October.
La Civil is a Belgian-Romanian-Mexican co-production, the film being endorsed by the production houses of some well-known authors in Cannes: Les Films du Fleuve of the Dardenne Brothers, Mobra Films of Cristian Mungiu and Michel Franco’s Theorem. The film was selected in the competitions of the Cannes and Venice festivals, and following its August premiere, it was invited to 15 other international festivals.
The production took place in extremely difficult conditions, being filmed in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, in Durango, Mexico, the director having the strength to manage the film, health conditions, and her new role as a mother.
According to Screen Daily, La Civil “paints a compelling picture of a society in which nobody can be trusted and everyone is complicit in a neverending cyle of violence“ – the story being the result of several years of extensive research undertaken by the director in collaboration with Mexican writer Habacuc Antonio de Rosario.
The film is inspired by a heartbreaking true story, a ransom in a Mexican society where clans are above law and authorities. Starting from the real case, in La Civil the director tells the story of Cielo, a mother who is looking for her daughter, who was kidnapped by the members of a drug cartel. As the authorities fail to help her, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and gradually turns from housewife into a vengeful activist.
In addition to the programme in the cinema halls, spectators will be able to enjoy this year’s online programme of the festival which will soon be available on www.filmedefestival.ro
Evoking the statement of general delegate of Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux, the 12th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest aims „to bring cinema back to life, to protect artists, to showcase the starts and to help the industry. It is a universal vision. Cinema is never uniform, it changes, it improves and all the festivals must adapt. The festival supports the cinema, and this needs cinema halls. The film theatre hasn’t had its last word yet. The multiplication of platforms around the world means that, as time goes by, traditional cinema halls will prove their unique strength”.
Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest is presented by Orange România, traditional partner of the event.
Inspired by: UniCredit Bank
With support from: Sun Wave Pharma, Apa Nova, Groupama, Dacin Sara, Mercure Hotels, Catena
A cultural Project financed by: Ministry of Culture and National Identity, Romanian Film Center, Iași City Hall, Iași Athenaeum, Iași Culture Centre, SACD, French Embassy in Romania and French Institute in Romania.
Official car: Renault
Festival’s coffee: Nespresso
Partners: Iași Athenaeum, Unirea Hotel & Spa, Federația Industriei Hoteliere din România, Avanpost, Multimedia Est, Europa Cinemas, Serve, Eventbook
Main media partners: Radio Guerrilla, TVR, Agerpres
Media partners: Zile și Nopți, Cinemap, Cinemagia, Ziarul Metropolis, Film Menu, iQAds, Smark, Movie News, LiterNet, The Institute, ELLE, Senso TV, Tonica, AARC, CineGhid, Munteanu, Films in Frame, Radio România Cultural, Blitz TV, Dentsu, Igloo
Partener cultural: RFI România
Local media partners: Radio România Iași, Ziarul de Iași, Iași TV Life, Viva FM, HIT Radio
Les Films de Cannes à Iași is organised by Asociația Cinemascop and Voodoo Films.
