One of the most surprising thing at the Cannes Film Festival is that you see all the people you know in the seventh Art. At the corner of a street, on a queue before a film screening,... they are just everywhere ! The cinema world is small, Cannes reunites all the cinema world, thus Cannes is small. CQFD !

Aurélie

After Peindre ou faire l’amour, Jean-Marie et Arnaud Larrieu comme back to the Cannes Film Festival presenting in the Director’s Fortnight Le Voyage aux Pyrénées. Jean-Pierre Darroussin et Sabine Azéma are Alexandre and Aurore, a famous actors couple who are in the Pyrenean mountains to cure Aurore from her nymphomaniac crisis. In these green landscapes, they meet some journalists, a wild woman, some curious people, a Bulgarian bear smoking on a roc, three singers-poets priests (whose the leader is played by the excellent Philippe Katerine), some mushrooms,...

This French comedy is a curious cinematographic object. The Larrieu brothers let their imagination wander in every direction. There are a lot of scenes irresistibly burlesques (maybe too much?). We are going literally from surprise to surprise so much that one could almost forget the initial plot to remember nothing but the concept of a film made of (good) sketches.

But the actors’ play is breathtaking especially during the last part of the film. Jean-Pierre Darroussin is brilliant in his character of protecting husband trying to cure his wife.

Listening to the public’s reaction during the screening and seeing the people waiting for the meeting with the film crew just after it, it is obvious that Le voyage aux Pyrénées will meet its audience when it will be released.

Aurélie

Le voyage aux Pyrénées directed by Jean-Marie et Arnaud Larrieu (with Sabine Azéma, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Amira Casar,…)
Quinzaine des réalisteurs

There are many clichés about the Cannes Film Festival conveyed notably by Television. These clichés have become rooted in the spirits and the collective imaginary and they are resisting. I have been in Cannes for 24 hours and to my surprise my “Cannes fantasies” are already vanishing.

The first of all these ideas one has before coming to the Croisette is that in Cannes, during the ten days of the festival and in every sections, we just see big films (you must understand good, very good!) First screening since I arrived, and first deception. Yes, at the Cannes Film Festival, the cinematographic quality is not always here. Cannes is the most beautiful, media important, etc, festival in the world; it does not mean that there are only good films…

Nevertheless it is indeed very important for the career of a film to be in Cannes, which remains the best place for the promotion of a film. The stamp “Festival de Cannes” is something like the best quality label one could imagine for a film ; it will participate a lot in the promotion of its releases, giving the film a visibility which it might not enjoy without a Cannes selection.

I’m running now to the next screening… because the essential here is to see many and many films, as many as you can. Whatever the quality!

PS : I know I did not mention to you, my dear readers, anything about this film I wrote about as my first cinematographic deception. I will rather write about films I like…

« It’s an odd place where to show films which are not sure of a theatre release to people who are not sure to go and see them, but the oddest of this thing, with Cannes, is the result of all this effervescence: to give the desire to see films, the desire to make films, the desire to love film. »

Gilles Jacob

« Cannes is the cinema: glamour and rigour, silly and serious, sexual and cerebral, excessive and refined, art and business, the ridiculous and the sublime. An elitism so discriminatory, and in the same time, the capacity to change, to embrace the new cinema tendencies. »

Todd McCarthy

From 14th to 25th May, the whole world will be focus on the 61st Cannes Film Festival. Ten days of Croisette, spangles and starlets... and (of course) of films, films and still films. And the program is exciting ! Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Wim Wenders, Arnaud Desplechin, Philippe Garrel, Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Atom Egoyan,... just for the Official Competition.

Thanks to Cineuropa.org, I’ve got the chance this year, to cover the Cannes Film Festival. A dream for a young graduate in cinema studies and an image impassioned. Thus, with this blog, I’ll try to share out my cinematographic sudden impulses, to describe the festival offstages and the atmosphere in Cannes,... because the goal through this blog is to give a less official vision of the Festival (the official will be on www.cineuropa.org), about my discovery and my impressions of this first experience in Cannes. The impatience and the exciting gain me slowly by slowly...

Aurélie Guelff (25 years old, Belgian)

Have you always dreamt of enjoying the warm atmosphere of Cannes during the world’s most prestigious film festival? The red carpet of the Festival Palace, parties on the beach and films, films, films… Make your dream come true simply by taking part in our contest “Become a Cineuropean”. You will be invited to Cannes to write a blog on your daily experiences about the European films you see and many other exciting events. Just answer ten questions and write a brief article about a European film in the style of your own blog. 

All information can be found on CINEUROPA.ORG

Don’t miss the chance of your life!

Here under is a summary of the contest's regulations:

Organiser
The non-profit association Cineuropa, running the website http://www.cineuropa.org/, here under called "the organising company", registered in the Belgian Monitor under the reference code 882082366 and based at Avenue Besme 84 - 1190 Brussels - Belgium, organises between April 1 and 25, 2008, a game-contest entitled "Become a Cineuropean".

Principle of the contest
The participants will have to answer a questionnaire of 10 questions dealing with the Cannes Film Festival and European cinema. Each good answer will give one point. The results are kept and saved digitally during the period of the contest. A subsidiary question will decide between the potential ex-aequos. In case of draw, a toss for the winner will be organised by Cineuropa's team.
Participants will also have to write in English half a page about a European film (one from Cineuropa's film database) as if they were writing on their own blog.

Object of the contest
The aim of the contest is to allow ONE European film lover to cover the Cannes Film Festival and feed a blog on http://www.cineuropa.org/ during the festival. In this blog only written in English, the winner will have to write his or her opinions about the European films he or she will have seen and give his or her impressions about the festival.

Cineuropa.org will arrange the accommodation of the winner during the festival. Cineuropa will also cover his or her food and transport expenses in the city of the festival with a daily fee. Cineuropa will have accredited the winner in the festival so that he or she can see as many European films as possible. If no agreement is reached between the festival and Cineuropa, the contest will have no object and will therefore be cancelled.

The transport costs between the winner's hometown and the festival's place will be at the winner's own expenses as well as all the personal expenses of the winner during the festival.

Conditions of participation
This contest is free of charge and without any obligation of buying. It is open to any legally adult person citizen of one of the participating countries in the MEDIA program of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United-Kingdom), at the exception of the permanent or temporary collaborators of the organising company and the members of their family. Companies, administrations, businesses or their employees cannot participate in the contest.

To take part in the contest one needs to be able to write fluently in English. Is considered a participant, a person who gives his family name and first name, nationality, date of birth, profession, personal address, city of residency, and valid phone number and email address. Should one information be wrong or missing, the participant is automatically eliminated of the contest. Participants are informed that their data saved in the framework of the contest are necessary for their participation and the attribution of the price.

The number of participation is limited to only one by email address and by participant (same family name and first name, same date of birth and same email address). In case of multiple participation with the same email address, only the first one will be taken into account. In case of multiple participation of one participant with different email addresses, the participant will be eliminated of the contest.

A photocopy of the identity card will be asked (...)

CINEUROPA.ORG - The Best Of European Cinema

The European film industry and film lovers of European films finally have a web site dedicated entirely to them and published in no less than four languages, English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

Read by many hundred of thousands people all around the World, Cineuropa.org publishes daily news about the most important events of the European film landscape, weekly interviews and focuses of films soon to be released, making of and special reports. Cineuropa.org also runs the most updated databases about European films and companies.

Cineuropa.org was created in 2002 in order to provide up-to-date information and other services to film professionals and film lovers from all over the world interested in knowing more about European films.

Cineuropa.org is therefore a fantastic tool for whoever loves, produces, distributes, or makes films - or whoever wishes to learn how to make them - as well as for institutions that promote European culture and for those that make the rules.

Cineuropa.org is co-funded by the MEDIA Plus Programme of the European Commission, the Ministry of the French Community of Belgium, Dipartimento dello Spettacolo, the French Centre National de la Cinématographie, the ICAA, Swiss Films, Filmunio, German Films, Luxembourg Film Fund, Malta Film Commission and the Irish Film Board.