Cannes 2012 roundup
Highlights from the international film festival.
The 65th Festival de Cannes, which is an event reserved for film industry professionals who need an accreditation to gain access to the “Palais des Festivals” is coming to a close. Here is a roundup of all the entertaining films as well as the red carpet standouts and the fashion blunders from the acclaimed festival.
Notable films
Two films in which actor Nicole Kidman played a central role screened at the festival. In Hemingway and Gellhorn, Kidman played Hemingway’s third wife who is a war correspondent waging her own battles. Kidman’s other film The Paperboy is up for the Palme d’Or top prize.
Money, sex and stretch limos abound as David Cronenberg brought Cosmopolis to Cannes, with Robert Pattinson as a billionaire financier looking for a haircut as a killer stalks him.
International films
A bleak morality tale of treason, revenge and dignity, played out in the forested wilds of Nazi-occupied Belarus during World War II, injected a chilling note to the Cannes race. In the Fog, the austere second feature film by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, is set on the western frontier of the Soviet Union in 1942, where local partisans have risen up to battle the German occupation.
Pakistani films
Kingdom of Women, which is directed and written by UAE-based Pakistani journalist Amna Ehtesham Khaishgi and produced by Arsalan Khan not only got nominated for Cannes 2012 but was also screened for top film-makers of the world.
Indian impact
The longest-running entry in this year’s Cannes festival, a five-hour Indian gangster epic called Gangs of Wasseypur, won a warm welcome at the Riviera event, even drawing parallels with Quentin Tarantino. The film which is a Bollywood-influenced gangster epic, part western, part documentary. Kashyap also had a hand in the experimental Peddlers, which screened in the other main sidebar section at Cannes, Critics’ Week. Directed by newcomer Vasan Bala and financed through appeals on Facebook, the Mumbai-set movie weaves together the stories of a cynical narcotics cop, and two youngsters who fall into the drug trade. Likewise, Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely, screened in the Un Certain Regard new talent section of the festival, drew a muted reception.
Cannes Aids gala
A star-studded Cannes gala attended by the likes of Kylie Minogue and Janet Jackson raised a record-breaking $11 million for Aids research. Kirsten Dunst, Zac Efron, Alec Baldwin and Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld were among the 980 glitterati at the event held Thursday night on the sidelines of the Riviera film festival by the American Aids research foundation amfAR.
Fashion at the Cannes
Actors Freida Pinto in Atelier Versace, Jane Fonda in a Stella McCartney and Cavalli number and Diane Kruger wearing Chanel did not disappoint at the Cannes. Even better was Kirsten Stewart in a stunning scarlet Reem Acra gown. Nicole Kidman was spectacular in practically everything she came out wearing during the festival. Bollywood star Aishwariya Rai’s corset sari by Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla remained contentious as it garnered a positive as well as a negative response.
One of the most disappointing numbers was Mallika Sherawat’s Ali Mahdavi gown which seemed more space age and less elegant.
(With additional information from Oye! Times and AFP)
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2012.