Despite the “usual” sequins on the red carpet and the audience’s return to what it was in the old days of the Croisette, No one thought of leaving the war outside the festival. This is what President of the Jury Vincent Lyndon promised, to ensure “a dignified and respectful version of these times of war” and actor and activist Forest Whitaker reiterated with the withdrawal of the honorary Palme d’Or, emphasizing that “directors help us give meaning to this world.” But at the end of the opening ceremony of the 75 / o Cannes Film Festival actress Virginie Evira, who conducted the evening, surprisingly announced the relationship with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, The effect was powerful and the words of a person who spends himself at all possible public events to find solidarity and active support for the resistance against Russia, gave an indisputable shock to the elegant audience of the Grand Theater Lumiere. Zelensky in general only spoke of the suffering of his people, From the ongoing tragedies in Mariupol with the Azovstal steel plant, but he turned to the world of cinema, to filmmakers and invited them directly to skepticism, in fact to arms. Citing director Mantas Kvidaravicius, who died in Ukraine and who finished his documentary Mariupolis 2 by his partner Hanna Bilobrova and who will be shown at the festival in a special show in the coming days to demonstrate, he said: “This hell is hell. “But above all he asked from cinema ” Not being silent.” “Hate will eventually disappear and tyrants will die. We are at war for freedom.”Said Zelensky, quoting the great dictator who mocked Hitler, and he gave us a standing ovation as soon as he began satellite communication from Kyiv. We will continue to fight, because we have no other choice and I am convinced that the dictator will lose. But will the cinema be silent or will it speak? Can the cinema stay out of this? “.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” Zelensky said, citing Apocalypse Now. Before calling Kiev, a strong speech, as usual, had been thought by Vincent Lyndon, who this year presides over the jury (with Jasmine Trinca, the Italian juror) that will award the Palme d’Or on May 28, to the clearest, if necessary, glamorous appearance Cannes, with its red carpet rituals, costumes, selfies and star appearances, is “pierced” by the true tragedy of the war. “The torment of the world that bleeds, suffers and burns … in Ukraine and also in the forgotten wars in Yemen and Darfur torments my conscience,” Lyndon said, recalling that the Cannes Festival was “established as a response to fascism.” Forest Whitaker, who was given a standing ovation during a ceremony that embarrassed him even, receiving an honorary Palme d’Or for his career that began with Clint Eastwood’s Bird and continued with several films from Scorsese’s Color of Money, in L’The Last King of Scotland to name a few (Then Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis which will shoot in August), he was no less sympathetic.
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