Cannes 2022: My Favorite Films

My favorite films this year were small, female-centered and female-directed movies. I have never been partial to female oriented or directed films before, so perhaps the year of COVID has transformed my own understandings and/ or it has altered the directing choices women make. Or maybe they were just better than the male-made pictures this year, though only three out of 18 films competing are directed by women, four years after the festival pledged to improve gender representation. Five films directed by women — out of 15 films total — will be shown as official selections in the festival’s Un Certain Regard. Selections for the festival are chosen by the selection committee. Maybe it, like the new French Oscar Selection Committee needs to be overhauled.

Mia Hansen-Løve, Alice Winocur, Emily Atef

Moreover, Cannes messed up on its online ordering system and changes in the ticketing protocols, and so I among many missed several films we wanted to see, e.g., Corsage, for which Vicky Krieps won Best Acting Award. Marie Kreutzer’s period piece in which Krieps plays Empress Sisi of Austria, one of Europe’s first celebrity royals was a coproduction of Austria, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. MK2 sold it to IFC for US and Canada. Other rights went to Austria-Panda Lichtspiele; Benelux-The Searchers; France-Ad Vitam; Hungary-Cirko; Ireland, UK-Picturehouse; Italy-Bim; Spain-Adso Films; Poland-M2; Czech Republic-Aerofilm; Ex-Yugoslavia-Demiurg. I will see it in the Berlin cinema where Alamode is releasing it. You can see it along with these favorite films of mine in Toronto!

Vicky Krieps plays Empress SIsi in ‘Corsage’. She also stars in ‘More Than Ever’

Paris Memories, One Fine Day, and More Than Ever were all about women finding their own unique path for their own unique well-being which could only be discovered by their listening to their own (rather than society’s) inner promptings.

Alice Winocur wrote and directed Revoir Paris after her brother had been in Bataclan, the night spot in Paris shot to bits by a mass murderer. However, her story is not at Bataclan or about Bataclan. A young tv reporter goes into an upscale brasserie to get out of a rain storm and the shooting occurs. The story starts as she returns to Paris after recovering for three months at her mother’s country home and notices the restaurant. It proceeds as she goes on a quest to recover her lost memory of what exactly happened to her that night. One sees Paris in a new way and the kindness of strangers creates bonds beyond the every day conventional ones we hold dear.

The second, One Fine Day, starring Lea Seydoux, is a simple story of a young widow who falls in love again. Simple, clean, quiet and beautifully depicted, it is a perfect film for Seydoux. Mia Hansen-Løve has created a jewel of a study of a woman recovering from grief and finding a way to love again. Among Seydoux’ 51 films in 18 years of acting are Inglorious Basterds, Farewell, My Queen, last year’s Cannes entry The Story of my Wife whose poor editing doomed it, and the most visible, Blue is the Warmest Color which won 2013 Cannes Palme d’Or as well as Best Actress for both her and her co-star Adele Exarchopoulos and the FIPRESCI Prize. One Fine Day may well be the film for which she will be most remembered by her fans.

The third, More Than Ever, by Berlin director Emily Atef (3 Days in Quiberonabout the last interview of Romy Schneider) captures the pathos of a young woman with a fatal disease and how even her beloved is unable to help. A tear-jerker but not at all melodramatic, one might say this is Krieps’ best role since Phantom Thread. (However, I have yet to see her in Corsage!) She finds her way toward peace which, in the end, is the most precious gift.

The back story of this movie is as dramatic as the film, perhaps more so because in real life, the costar died. Her costar Gaspard Ulliel had a son with his former partner, model and singer Gaëlle Piétri, born in January 2016. They split up in 2020. Filming went from 14 April 2021to 4 June 2021. Gaspard died on 19 January, 2022, in La Tronche, Isère, France, after a skiing accident. Vicky Krieps, who was Gaspard Ulliel’s last companion — a version called into question by Gaëlle Pietri, got a drubbing originally from the popular French press and populace for this dating of events in which she was judged a home breaker.

Speaking to paper jam about More than ever, “Krieps said, ‘I hope that More Than Ever won’t just be anticipated because it’s Gaspard Ulliel’s last film. Above all, it is a very beautiful film (…) The projection can only be a nice moment, since, during this film, Gaspard will be alive on screen. To be present at Cannes, in a last feature film which thus speaks of the love of a couple, and of how this love can survive death, is a beautiful analogy. Strong and deep. I hope we manage to convey some of this truth to the public…’, she confided to paper jam, not without emotion.”

After the Cannes standing ovation for Corsage, the public has forgiven Vicky for her perceived real-life position. We look forward to her next movies now in post: Bachmann & Frisch; The Three Musketeers: Milady and The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan in which she plays Anne d’Autriche, and 
The Wall in which she plays a committed and zealous border patrol agent who loses control and kills a harmless migrant in front of three witnesses.

The three films I loved most in Cannes touched my innermost emotional core. They validate my own choices and strengthen my convictions. I am sure they will encourage others to recognize and follow their own promptings as they find new pathways in our quickly changing world.

Females in Anime

Here's a new blog on the subject of Women in Cinema...Females in Anime by Mikey-San.  Maybe Hollywood could get some ideas for some new female roles reading this. "The Cheerleader", "The Genki Girl"...or maybe Hollywood already knows these.  Hear what the Japanese blogger (I hope she's a female!) has to say:

As the title says, welcome to Females in Anime! This is a blog that will take a look at the treatment of females ranging from young girls to women in many different animes. I am going to take a look at different character roles and stereotypes that females commonly take in animes through a series of different blog posts for the next couple of weeks.

Rena Ronson to UTA | The Wrap

I once planned to write a book entitled Ronna, Rena, Gina and Me. It would have been about the first women in the business of film (vs. the creative side of filmmaking). Ronna Wallace began as the first in acquisitions and opened up her jobs to me as she left them, most notably leaving Arthur Morowitz to head up MGM Home Video. Rena, met first behind the desk at Fox Lorber (with David Linde!) and then entering international sales -- and not just buying and selling features but companies themselves -- while not the first women in independent international sales, she was the first to be so versatile crossing into the agency world, producer repping and financing as well. Gina Resnick, an attorney moving up the corporate ladder to head acquisitions at RCA Columbia Home Video, and me, quiet but the first woman in corporate international distribution (20th Century Fox International, Amsterdam). The problem with the book was that while we all said yes, we were all too busy working to sit down and recall the struggles and compromises and decisions we had to take to keep progressing upward. And today, while we're all still going strong, it is Rena who has sprinted ahead once again and is still going upwards (while we are maintaining our pace and feeling strong about that). Here is the latest, straight from the official press release as broken on The Wrap. Congratulatons!

Rena Ronson to UTA The Wrap: "United Talent Agency today announced that top film finance and packaging executive Rena Ronson has joined the agency as Co-Head of the Independent Film Group. She will join UTA motion picture literary partner Rich Klubeck in overseeing the group, where she will focus on film finance and film packaging for independent and co-financed studio features as well as foreign sales and distribution strategies. Ronson was most recently co-head of William Morris Independent.

“UTA continues to recruit professionals who can bring experience and relationships that will serve our colleagues and our clients,” said UTA Board member Jeremy Zimmer. “Rena’s professionalism and reputation as one of the most passionate and widely-admired players in independent film certainly fit that criteria.

“Rena’s addition speaks directly to the vision we have for expanding our finance and packaging operations,” said UTA motion picture lit partner Rich Klubeck who has headed the group since 2004. “Her extensive experience here and abroad and her insight into the changing economics of the film industry will greatly add to our reach in the global film market. I am thrilled that she is joining the agency.

“This is a terrific opportunity and one I couldn’t pass up,” said Rena Ronson. “I have long admired the way in which UTA has grown and positioned itself in the industry, and I am excited to join Rich and the team in being part of the agency’s future. Together, Rich and I aim to make UTA a market leader in developing the new strategies and solutions that filmmakers, producers and financiers need in these challenging times.”

One of My Favorite Films In Cannes

Not that I saw so many films in Cannes. But this Competition feature "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo" by Spanish director Isabel Coixet remains with me and so many others have already disappeared from my memory. This story of love, vengeance and mourning in the Japanese megacity brings to mind themes from "Last Tango In Paris", the place of sex in the face of death, eros and thanatos and our fragile humanity in dealing with life as survivors.
...Sydney

Thanks to Cinema Without Borders for this account of the film by Coixet:


Coixet recalls the genesis of her film: "Films, like tunes or poems, spring from strange encounters, from odd associations that can be completely incongruent but full of magic. In the case of Map of the Sounds of Tokyo, I 'saw'the story (I don’t want to sound like some kind of visionary, but this is how I felt it happen) at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. I suppose the smells of fresh tuna, seaweed and oysters, the shouting of the auctioneers, the scraping and shuffling of thousands of fish boxes dragged across the market floor and the peculiar effects of the fluorescent lighting at four o’clock in the morning had a great deal to do with it. Or the stony face of the girl neatly hosing the floor who was so adamant in her refusal to let me photograph her, showing a determination that is unusual for Japan."
"I knew I would tell this story of a woman – a hard, solitary, mysterious, wounded woman – who leads a double life: a fish market worker who cleans, hauls crates and occasionally carries out jobs as a hit-woman. And the story of a man, whose obsession are sounds, and who is silently in love with that woman, even though he knows that the very most he can expect from her is the sound of her breath, the sound of her heels down an empty alley and her conversations during her meetings with a man, of Spanish origin, towards whom she experiences an attraction that endangers the life she has led up until then as a loner. To this initial idea, my “vision” or whatever you want to call it, I added the story of a man who is unable to cope with the loss of his daughter, and is on a blind search for revenge that eventually leads to a tragic end."
"This is how Map of the Sounds of Tokyo was born. I was also influenced by the fascination I feel for contemporary Japanese culture and the atmosphere I find in the novels of Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto as well as by my unconcealed addiction to wasabi and the almost tangible vibrations emanating from Tokyo during the night: a mixture of expectation, mystery, darkness and tenderness that leaves an indelible mark."
In 2005, Isabel Coixet was a member of the 18-filmmaker team - which also included Gus Van Sant, Walter Salles, and the Coen brothers – which produced the collective project "Paris, Je T’aime",in which each director explored a different Paris arrondissement, or district.

New Thread: Women in Movies

My blogs are often created as responses to requests of clients seeking research or to my own interests. I was recently put on the board of the new website www.Twolia.com and my blog on that site will be posted here as well because it is hitting that all important demographic: Woman.

Here is the first:
I am going to blog about women in film...starting with Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" which is bound for Academy Awards.

If you want to follow this blog, also sign up for free to www.imdb.com because that's where you can find out more about the names here. If you are a film professional, you might sign up ($100/ year) to www.IMDbPro.com where you'll get even more information with contact information.
So, Kathryn Bigelow has been an actress, is a writer, director and producer. A list of films she's directed (from IMDb of course) is here.

The Hurt Locker (2008)
Mission Zero (2007)
"Karen Sisco" (1 episode, 2004) - He Was a Friend of Mine (2004) TV episode
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)... aka K*19: The Widowmaker (USA: poster title)... aka K-19 - Showdown in der Tiefe (Germany)... aka K-19: Terreur sous la mer (Canada: French title)
The Weight of Water (2000)... aka Le poids de l'eau (France)
"Homicide: Life on the Street" (3 episodes, 1998-1999)... aka "Homicide" (USA: informal short title) - Lines of Fire (1999) TV episode - Fallen Heroes: Part 2 (1998) TV episode - Fallen Heroes: Part 1 (1998) TV episode
Strange Days (1995)
"Wild Palms" (1993) TV mini-series (hour 4)
Point Break (1991)
Blue Steel (1989)
New Order: Substance (1989) (V) (video "Touched By The Hand Of God")
Near Dark (1987)
The Loveless (1982)... aka Breakdown
The Set-Up (1978)
Her films are very male in that they deal with action, hard core crime, and in "The Hurt Locker", with war - this time in Iraq. After that absolutely fantastic film, you never need to see another movie on Iraq. I looked hard for the woman's touch and maybe found it in a rather out of place scene where one of the soldiers sneaks into a private home and the woman of the house yells at him until he leaves like a dog with his tail between his legs.

It looks like Bigelow is bound for the Oscars which brings to mind someone else's blog which I am going to post here as well. Anne Thompson in Thompson on Hollwood (TOH!) in her article (see Ladies First) says:

"If Kathryn Bigelow were to be nominated for best director, she would become only the fourth woman - and second American woman - ever to receive that honor. If “The Hurt Locker” were to be nominated for best picture, it would become only the seventh best picture directed (or co-directed) by a woman. And for the first time ever, she could have some female competition. Back in indieWIRE‘s post-Cannes awards check-in, we noted the first inclinations of this fantastic potential. Jane Campion (one of the previous three female director nominees) seems to be in good shape for contention after the Cannes screenings of her “Bright Star", and Lone Scherfig’s “An Education” was still enjoying the promise that met it at the Sundance Film Festival.

Both “Star” and “Education” - set for release in September and October, respectively - continue to seem like likely fixtures in the awards race. And they could possibly be joined by a few as-yet-unseen female-helmed films, from Mira Nair’s “Amelia” to Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest” to Nancy Meyer’s (who has supassed Penny Marshall as the highest grossing woman director) as-yet-untitled (It's Complicated) but promisingly cast (Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin!) new film. That makes for six strong female-directed possibilities - not to mention a slew of female-centric possibilities like Rob Marshall’s “Nine” and Lee Daniels’s “Precious” (oddly enough, both directed by gay men) - in these unchartered ten best picture-nominee waters. And wouldn’t that make good on the Academy’s suggestion that the fattened shortlist would “broaden the possibilities” of Oscar?

At this point, it would be surprising if five films that have already screened either theatrically or in festivals—“The Hurt Locker,” “Bright Star,” “An Education,” “Precious” and “Up”—did not end up serious contenders for Oscar’s top ten. That would make for half the list being filled with three female directed-films, a film directed by an African-American (which has never made the shortlist), and an animated film (which has happened just once in 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast”)."