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At first glance, it looks much the same as it must have to the Hollywood and European film stars who first gathered here more than half a century ago.
Against a backdrop of age-old, ivory-coloured hotels, the much photographed white-sand beaches and seaside Croissette — a pedestrian-friendly street of shops, inns and brasseries that runs along the beach — of tiny Cannes, France have the nostalgic air of a classic movie.
One can easily imagine, say, 50s screen idol Grace Kelly sunning herself on one of the many lounge chairs set up next to the azure waters or Italian film legend Marcello Mastroianni seated, cocktail in hand, under a striped sun umbrella while admiring the yachts moored nearby.
Of course, in a way such icons of the silver screen are always on hand in this tiny Mediterranean town of about 70,000 people — if only in spirit and, this year, in ubiquitous vintage photographs — being that since 1948 it has played host to the world's most prestigious celebration of movies.
Diamond Jubilee
Held this year from today until May 27, the annual Cannes Film Festival all but defines cinema glitz and glamour, and is the site of much of the wheeling and dealing that leads to the making of thousands of movies each year, including the select few it honours with awards such as the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for best film.
This year, the event marks its 60th anniversary with what promises to be even more than its usual generous dose of pomp and ceremony — not to mention scantily-clad starlets like the red trench coat and thigh-high boot-clad femme de la nuit who graces one of its publicity posters.
Besides the yearly tradition of screening hundreds of features, shorts and documentaries that the selection committee considers the best in the world, the festival will also celebrate its birthday with a mini festival of 33 short films about movie-going by directors like Roman Polanski, Mexico's Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and Malaysian-born and Taiwan-based film-maker Tsai Ming Liang.
Coincidentally, this year also marks the first time that a Singaporean, 23-year-old Anthony Chen, will contend for the Short Film Palme d'Or. His 14-minute short, Ah Ma, is one of three Singaporean offerings in the festival line-up.
The Cannes Film Festival's diamond jubilee is a watershed in more ways than one, coming at a time when the movie industry's centre of gravity seems to be shifting away from Hollywood towards long-time but newly prominent movie-making capitals such as Beijing, Seoul and Mumbai.
Testifying to the growing prominence of Asian films internationally, the festival opens tonight with the world premiere of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights, the first film in English from the director of Chungking Express (1994) and 2046 (2004).
My Blueberry Nights, a road movie shot in the US, bankrolled in France and featuring a mix of British and American stars such as Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Ed Harris, also marks the acting debut of Grammy-winning US singer-songwriter Norah Jones.
"It's the story of a woman who takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves," Wong said of the film, one of four from the region among the 22 in competition for the Palme d'Or.
The others are South Korean director Lee Chang Dong's Secret Sunshine, compatriot Kim Ki Duk's Breath, and Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawasi's The Forest of Mogari.
Only three Asians — China's Chen Kaige and Japan's Shohei Imamura and Akira Kurosawa — have earned the best film prize since its inception in 1955, and this year's hopefuls will be up against a number of past winners, the bulk of them from the US.
Gus Van Sant, who claimed the Palme d'Or in 2003 for Elephant, is back with his latest film, Paranoid Park; 1994 winner for Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino hopes for a repeat victory with Death Proof – one-half of his and Robert Rodriguez's B-movie tribute Grindhouse — and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who nabbed the top award in 1991 for Barton Fink, return with No Country for Old Men.
The inclusion in the competition of five US-made films — the others being director James Gray's We Own the Night and Se7en helmsman David Fincher's Zodiac, which opens in Singapore on May 31 — prompted the festival organisers to offer their annual denial that the event has become too Hollywood-centric.
"I belong to a generation of cinephiles for whom loving cinema means loving American cinema," said artistic director Thierry Fremaux. "And I've the feeling that this is going to be a great year for American films."
Two-time Golden Palm winner Emir Kusturica of Serbia, along with the film-makers behind the Asian entries, the three competitors from France, two from Russia and one from Latin America will be among those aiming to ensure that it's not.
The winners of the top awards for the feature films, which will be handed out on festival's final day, will be chosen by a nine-member jury headed by British director Stephen Frears, which also includes Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, Australian star Toni Collette, Canadian actress Sarah Polley and Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk among others.
Celebrate bollywood
Bollywood might not be represented among the movies vying for the most prestigious piece of hardware — there are also prizes for best director, actor and actress, screenplay and first film among others — but that doesn't mean the world's largest film industry won't be well represented at Cannes.
To mark both its 60th birthday and 60 years of Indian independence, the festival will hold a two-day celebration of Bollywood cinema featuring screenings of landmark films and appearances by leading lights such as newlyweds Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan, and actress Shilpa Shetty.
And attendees shouldn't expect the same old song and dance: "We are taking on more realistic and controversial subject matter," said film-maker and Cannes attendee Karan Johar. "This has opened a Pandora's Box in India but it has helped us connect with audiences who might otherwise never have seen a Bollywood film."
Be that as it may, the focus of the roughly 4,000 reporters and photographers in attendance will be as much on the celebrities treading the red carpet — and posing along the Croisette — as it will be on the wide variety of films being screened in the town's palatial cinemas.
On the red carpet
After missing last year's festival to welcome the arrival of daughter Shiloh Nouvel, superstar couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are expected in Cannes this week to promote separate films that will both be screened out of the main competition.
Pitt will join co-stars George Clooney and Matt Damon at the premiere of crime caper Ocean's Thirteen, while Jolie will walk the red carpet ahead of the debut of British director Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart, in which she stars as the wife of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter executed by extremists in Afghanistan in 2002.
A winner of the Palme d'Or three years ago for Fahrenheit 9/11, American documentary-maker Michael Moore will also screen Sicko, his expose on the American health industry that already has him in hot water over allegations he violated a 45-year US travel ban by shooting footage in Cuba.
Provacative? You bet.
That and the cleavage-baring, red trench coat-clad babe on the poster are evidence enough that, even at the ripe old age of 60, Cannes still has what it takes to draw the eyes of the world. - TODAY/ra
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