Chinese Class - Cannes opens with Asian take on US road movies

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Cannes opens with Asian take on US road movies

(AFP)
Updated: 2007-05-16 15:46





British actor Jude Law and US singer Norah Jones playing in the film "My
blueberry nights" by Chinese director Wong Kar Wai who will become the
first Chinese filmmaker to open the Cannes film festival.[AFP]

A road movie set in the United States, directed by a Hong Kong filmmaker
and starring soft-note singer Norah Jones is to open the Cannes film
festival in France Wednesday in a showy bow to the event's global
credentials.

"My Blueberry Nights", by director Wong Kar Wai, is to get the full
red-carpet treatment when it kicks off the 10-day festival under the
glare of international media.

Jones -- who is making her big-screen debut after a string of top-selling
soulful albums -- was expected to make the premiere with Wong and
co-stars Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Tim Roth and Natalie Portman.

The movie, the first of 22 films competing for Cannes's prestigious Palme
d'Or prize, is Wong's first English-language feature after such arthouse
hits as "2046" and "In the Mood for Love".

Its selection underlined the growing influence of Asia in Cannes and in
world cinema generally, and of the enduring fascination with US culture.

Over the course of the festival, other top-grade directors will be
presenting their latest titles, including previous Palme winners Quentin
Tarantino with "Death Proof", the Coen brothers with "No Country for Old
Men" and Emir Kusturica with "Promise Me This".

Out of competition, "Sicko", the latest documentary by Michael Moore (who
won the Palme three years ago with "Fahrenheit 9/11") will be one of the
hottest tickets.

And Cannes's star power, normally in no short supply, will be turned up
to a blinding level one night next week when most of the cast of "Ocean's
Thirteen" turn out.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino and Andy Garcia, as well
as director Steven Soderbergh are all expected to show.

But the celebrity glamour and the competition for the festival trophy are
only the glitzy mask of an event that this year is celebrating its 60th
anniversary as the undisputed international movie showpiece.

From Thursday, the business side of moviemaking will be the focus for
10,000 industry types buying and selling one billion dollars' (700
million euros') worth of celluloid in the Cannes Market, a sprawling zone
of stalls and tents that spills out onto the beach.

"We've always been the most innovative market," said Jerome Paillard, the
head of the market.

Some 900 films are to be shown to potential buyers in that section, part
of the 4,000 titles up for sale.

With so many films to see -- and with judgement sometimes compromised by
Cannes's punishing side programme of parties and cocktail dos -- there
was no certainty that critics or movie executives would be picking the
best of the crop in every case, however.

As Jorgen Kristiansen, the head of acquisitions for Scanbox, a
Scandinavian company buying movies for DVD distribution, put it:
"Sometimes you make mistakes -- every year we make mistakes.

"But if you get one (film) out of 10 right, that makes up for it."












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