Australian director, screenwriter, and producer Baz Luhrmann will be at the Cannes Film Festival to present the world premiere of his latest film, Elvis, along with Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, and Olivia DeJonge. Elvis will be released in North America on June 24, 2022, and worldwide from June 22, 2022.
Elvis focuses on the life and work of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), through the prism of his complex relationship with his mysterious manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).
AUSTIN BUTLER as Elvis and TOM HANKS as Col. Tom Parker in Warner Bros. Drama “ELVIS” Pictures, a film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The story delves into the complex dynamic between Presley and Parker over more than 20 years, from Presley’s rise to stardom to his unprecedented stardom, as America experiences major socio-cultural upheaval and loses its innocence. At the heart of this journey is one of the most important and influential people in Elvis’ life, Priscilla Presley (Olivia DeJonge).
A flamboyant filmmaker, Baz Luhrman is the only director to present two feature films at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival with Moulin Rouge! in 2001, selected in Competition, and Gatsby the Magnificent in 2013. In 1992, he caused a sensation at the 45th edition of the Festival with his first film Ballroom Dancing, screened in the Un Certain Regard section.
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is being produced by Bazmark and The Jackal Group and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Picture worldwide.
At the start of the 21st century, Cannes was the premier cinema event in the world. It stood out from the other international film festivals events such as the Berlinale and Venice festivals.
And, to further strengthen the indissoluble link that united Cannes with the most important cultural event in the world, the International Film Festival became the Cannes Film Festival in 2002, under the impetus of Cannes’ Mayor and Member of Parliament, Bernard Brochand.
The arrival of the new millennium brought about changes in awareness under the filmgoer’s trained eye. After the creation of the Caméra d’Or, awarded to the Best First Film, the Festival went a step further by recognizing the best film-school short films with the creation of Cinéfondation in 1998.
In 2000, the Festival continued to show its support for new talents by creating a new initiative called The Residence to welcome young filmmakers and help them develop their projects. 2005 saw another innovation called the Children’s Session, a class for the youngest fans to encourage their curiosity about cinema.
In 2002, for the 55th anniversary of the Festival, the top award went to alternative American director, Michael Moore, for Bowling for Columbine. Two years later Moore received a second Palme d’Or for Fahrenheit 9/11.
American cinema d’auteur was still in favor in 2003 when Gus Van Sant won the Palme d’Or and the award for Best Director. His film Elephant recounted the day that two teenagers gunned down their fellow students in a school in Columbine in America.
The Festival thus had to encourage relations between cinema professionals and defend its interests against outside influences. Furthermore, historical events were seared into the public’s mind, in this case, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, or the bomb threats of 2002, demonstrating the importance of the tensions weighing on the event as it was happening.
Fahrenheit 9/11
Nonetheless, the Festival was not immune to such media/political phenomena, as can be seen with the release of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004, with took a position favorable to France during the Iraq conflict and the wrong-minded American strategy.
In 2005, the Festival emphasized its International dimension. The Festival’s Atelier (Workshop), organized by the Cinéfondation, invited 18 filmmakers from around the world to come to Cannes to present their projects to producers during the Festival. A new program, called ‘All the cinemas of the World’, offered different countries the chance to present their films.
Thierry Fremaux
Thierry Fremaux, who was appointed Delegate General in 2007, said: “The Festival is also a market for international buyers and sellers; today it is the culmination, not the starting point. It used to be that films were discovered here. Now, everything is done upstream and the selections are known to the professionals one month before they are made public. But sales are often finalized after screening at Cannes.”
In 2007, the Festival celebrated its 60th anniversary. It continued to denounce a fragile world in need of unity. Both 2007 and 2009, the Palme d’or was given to movies that referenced a painful past: 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days from director Cristian Mungiu told the story of two young girls, trying to abort in Ceaucescu’s Romania , and The White Ribbon from Michael Haneke darkly depicted society and family in a northern German village just before World War I.
However, in 2008, Jury President Sean Penn stated, he wanted to reward a filmmaker who was “very aware of the times within which he lives.” Consequently, The Class from Laurent Cantet received the Palme d’or in 2008. The film depicted a French teacher (François Bégaudeau, both teacher and writer, is acting his own part in the movie ), and his experience, during one whole school year, in teaching French class to racially mixed students in a tough Parisian neighborhood.
Although the commercial blockbusters were largely absent from the competition, their stars could often be seen on La Croisette, and independent films were also competitors to be reckoned with.
The 1990s ushered in a time of significant change globally and that change was reflected at the Cannes Film Festival. “Promotion” became the driving new buzzword. Hardly anyone was more creative than Madonna. After Italian politician, La Cicciolina, answered the age-old question of how to dress at Cannes, the former porn actress wore an outfit that seemed more appropriate for the bedroom than the red carpet, Madonna walked the steps and red carpet with her La Cicciolina-inspired outfit.
True to say cinema had broken loose and perpetual change was underway.
In 1990, Federico Fellini presented The Voice of the Moon at the Cannes Film Festival. Fellini had once declared that “Cannes is like a natural harbor for a film to moor in”. Despite having once said that he didn’t like ceremonies, this was his tenth film presented on La Croisette, after films such as The Nights of Cabiria in 1957, La Dolce Vita in 1960, Amarcord in 1974, and City of Women in 1980. The Festival paid tribute to him by presenting effigies of his characters on the Festival’s Louis Lumière theater stage curtain. The Voice of the Moon would be the last film by the legendary director who died in 1994.
Federico Fellini (Cr.Cannes_Festival)
In 1991, the award winners chosen under the presidency of Roman Polanski stirred up less debate but nevertheless set a precedent. The members of the jury, swept up by their enthusiasm, attributed all the major awards to the film Barton Fink. The Coen brothers won the Palme d’Or and the award for Best Director and the award for Best Actor went to its star John Turturro. From then on the Festival forbade future juries from attributing all the major awards to one film.
In 1993, the Palme d’Or was jointly awarded to Farewell, My Concubine by Chen Kaige, and to a woman, the director Jane Campion for The Piano. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first ‘Cinema & Liberty’ conference was held and attracted a hundred plus directors from all around the world. Tellingly, prizes were awarded to representatives from around the world: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern European countries. The Festival also surpassed 20000 participants.
In 1995, American Sharon Stone was all the rage as she was on full display making a name for herself with controversial scenes in the neo-noir erotic thriller, Basic Instinct. The following year Quintin Tarantino premiered his Palme d’Or-winning, cult-classic, Pulp Fiction.
Quintin Tarantino (Cr. Cannes_Festival)
But, 1995 seemed to be a pivotal year in capturing the spirit of the time with new film genres utilizing the camera as a witness to history and capturing socio-cultural issues of the day such as the phenomenon of suburban slums with Matthieu Kassovitz’s film La Haine (Hate), which took the Best Director’s prize, or the fight against racism with the film Jungle Fever by the renowned Spike Lee. These new contemporary genres and accompanying film work created a buzz in public opinion as well as a source of controversy.
Cinema Paradiso
Undeniably, the recurrent reproach had been that the Festival rewards cinema d’auteur and not what the public wants to watch. The nineties largely proved this wrong. The decade saw the Palme d’Or going to The Piano, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Secrets and Lies by Mike Leigh, and other prizes going to Hate by Mathieu Kassovitz and The Eighth Day by Jaco van Dormael, all of which were big box office successes. In certain cases, the Cannes Festival has even helped a film to find its public. Cinema Paradiso initially met with very poor reception in Italy. In 1989, its director Giuseppe Tornatore shortened it by half an hour before presenting it at Cannes. It won the Jury Grand Prix and went on to be an international success.
With its worldwide reputation, the Festival continued to grow throughout the 1990s and left an indelible mark with such iconic moments as the Italian actor-director Roberto Benigni’s satisfaction, on his knees under the spotlights, after winning for his film Life is Beautiful at the end of the 90s. These films left their mark on the history of worldwide cinema, contributing to the democratization of various social phenomena such as homosexuality with the film Happy Together by Wong Kar-Wai.
50 years of promoting cinema
Growing over the years, the Cannes Film Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1997. 1,289 films from all around the world had been part of the official selection since the first Festival in 1946, through 50 years of cinema that has captured the evolution of our societies.
Stay tuned for new awareness and the new millennium!
The Cannes Film Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world and is widely considered the most important festival in the world in terms of impact as it draws attention to and raises profiles of films contributing to the development of cinema, globally boosts the industry and celebrates film at an international level, As such, a ten-part series on the Cannes Film Festival is underway with the publishing of the History of the Cannes Film Festival – Parts I, II, III, IV, and V.
As the scandals of the 1960s subsided and the advent and sprouting of the Directors Fortnight during the 1970s, the decade of the 1980s promised hope and witnessed the emergence of foreign cinemas that theretofore had been forbidden to be exported, were now being screened. While the diplomatic barriers were being shaken, the festival’s reputation as a filmmakers’ forum emerged. Cannes had proven its commitment to defending the filmmaker’s freedom of expression.
In 1983, the choice of winners was sharply criticized, with the jury giving out additional Jury’s Grand Prix and a Grand Prix for art films at the last minute. The choice of films presented largely stressed committed cinema that never gives in to government pressure. This was also the decade that gave rise to socially aware young directors.
The Tin Dum
Françoise Sagan, the president of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 1979, sparked off a major scandal in Cannes by declaring: “It is true that I tried to put pressure on the jury. I did so simply because the day before, Mr. Favre le Bret completely stepped out of his role by trying to do the exact same thing.” Françoise Sagan was in favor of awarding the Palme d’Or to Volker Schlöndorff’s film The Tin Drum, while a number of jury members preferred Apocalypse Now. At the last minute, both films were awarded the Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival.
Apocalypse Now
In 1983, Robert Favre le Bret, after witnessing the birth and evolution of the festival, stepped down as President of the Cannes Film Festival passing the torch to Pierre Viot. Viot teamed up with the 1978 appointed Delegate General (Director of the Festival), Gilles Jacob. Jacob had created the Caméra d’Or prize for the best first film which could be awarded to a film from any one of the three parallel events (the Official Cannes Selection, the Directors’ Fortnight, and Critics’ Week). He also grouped together the non-competitive categories in a selection called Un Certain Regard.
In addition, the town decided the Palais de la Croisette had become too small for the event and ordered the construction of the Palais des Congrès. The municipality’s initial idea for expanding the Palais Croisette was not viable and, given the Festival’s growing success, there was a need to go big and build a new one.
Palais des Festivals et des Congrès 1983
Its time had come and in 1983 the new Palais des Festivals et des Congrès was ready. The stakes were high as the structure would host numerous events throughout the year. Upon opening, many complained the architecture was too boxy and many described it as “a hideous concrete blockhouse.” Yet, the bunker style was accepted though it wasn’t a perfect fit for the festival. Nevertheless, the famous twenty-four steps decorated with the red carpet has welcomed tens of thousands of festival-goers, and hundreds of screenings, and helped maintain the ongoing popularity of the Film Market.
Palais des Festivals et des Congrès
In 1986 the 39th Cannes Festival was declared open by 14-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg and 94-year-old Charles Vanel, hand in hand symbolizing the tradition of the past and the emerging talent of the present day.
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charles Vanel (Image cr. AFP)
The duo of Viot and Jacob formed a well-balanced team, between boldness and tradition. The Festival continued its efforts to protect freedom of expression and promote cinema as a whole, but it also became committed to defending thematically the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The Cannes Film Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world and is widely considered the most important festival in the world in terms of impact as it draws attention to and raises profiles of films contributing to the development of cinema, globally boosts the industry and celebrates film at an international level, As such, a ten-part series on the Cannes Film Festival is underway with the publishing of the History of the Cannes Film Festival – Parts I, II, III, and IV.
Following the crisis of May 18, 1968, the Cannes festival needed a breath of fresh air and the Directors Fortnight (La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) of 1969 oxygenated the release of ideological constraints, opening the way for new ideas and cinema representation propagated on May 18th.
Directors Fortnight 1969
The Fortnight, initiated by the French Directors Guild, was a major evolution for independent cinema at the Festival, providing new directors an opportunity to make their work known. This new change quickly became the talk of the town, with the audience increasing exponentially from 4,000 filmgoers in 1970 to 72,000 in 1990.
Starting in 1999 Fortnight programming was overseen by an artistic director. The current artistic director is Paolo Moretti who has programmed Director’s Fortnight since 2018.
In 1972 Robert Favre Le Bret’s successor as the Cannes Film Festival’s Delegate General, Maurice Bessy, quickly understood the importance of parallel selections. He opened the Festival up to a wide range of films, such as the Studies and Documents section, the section dedicated to news films, and the section dedicated to compilation films and news archives.
Stay tuned for the advent of new media in the 1980s decade at the Cannes Film Festival!
AUSTIN BUTLER as Elvis and TOM HANKS as Col. Tom Parker in Warner Bros. Drama “ELVIS” Pictures, a film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
