War in Ukraine features two skin stories

Brasserie Le Casanova, a restaurant just steps from the Palais de Cannes, was packed with international fans for dinner on Wednesday night when a storm hit the cruise ship. The ground began to shake and the sky filled with orange smoke. Many customers left and some, including industry guests from Ukraine, hid under their desks. Few surprised people thought they were being bombed or attacked by a terrorist.

But in fact there was noise from French fighter planes flying nearby. Top Gun: Maverick The premiere that promoted the Tom Cruise movie to everyone, regardless of whether or not they had a theater ticket that night.

The Dissident The moment of the flight was either a spectacular manifestation and a welcome moment of escape from these horrible years of domestic pandemic, or a horrible trick felt by the victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine some 1,200 miles away.

Much of the fur so far has been so polarised, with coats, yachts and a drop of pink – which at best can lead to decadence and touch – a more hideous contrast than usual in the French world. Riviera.

If you’re drinking and laughing on skinny beach dates this year, you’re driving Vladimir Putin and COVID crazy if you’re just Sally Bowles CabaretDo you insist on continuing the party even when the sound of boots outside the Kit Kat Club gets louder?

Sometimes the real world is dramatically invaded by the skin bladder, like when a protester broke The debut of three thousand years of nostalgia On Friday night, he nearly stripped to show the colors of the Ukrainian flag and the words “Stop our violations” painted on his chest. At one point in the two Cannes fairy tales, as guards dragged red carpet protesters on the banks of the gleaming Hotel Di Cap-Eden-Rock, there were stars like Alicia Vikander and Cannes judge Noomi Rapes. Dinner at an elegant party hosted by Louis Vuitton and vanity fair.

The festival directly acknowledged the war, especially when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared via live video call from Kiev during the opening ceremony and told filmmakers and the press: “It is essential that cinema does not remain silent.” Forrest Whitaker, who was to receive an honorary gold palm branch that night, seemed to understand that he was speaking to a surprised audience, no matter how charming he looked in a black tie. “For years we discussed the trauma of what happened,” Whitaker said, referring to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the social justice protests over the past two years.

Russian dissident director Kirill Serebrenikov used the press conference for the competition film. Chaikovsky’s wife, as an opportunity to demand the lifting of sanctions against Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who sponsors his Art House films. “These are not propaganda films,” Serebrenikov said of the Abramovich-financed films. “Of course. The boycott of Russian culture seems unbearable to me, because Russian culture always promotes human values.”

The festival’s premiere took place on Thursday. Mariupolis 2Documentary by director Mantas Kvedaravichius, who was killed in Ukraine in early April while working on a 2016 documentary about the lives of citizens living in Mariupol during the escalating threat of war with Russia.

Saturday was the Ukraine Day March, where a conference on the possibilities of rebuilding the industry there was discussed. “I want to bring a lot of films to Ukraine,” said Polehen Pictures producer Molly Connors, who was preparing to make the film. Karsky, a biopic of a Polish resistance fighter during World War II, set in Kiev before the pandemic and war broke out. “I love local filmmakers, it’s a great place to work.”

For those trying to do business with their fellow Ukrainians at the festival, resisting the effects of war requires a delicate balance. Speaking at the meetings, Connors said, “They say, ‘I want to talk about movies and music, but first we have to live and go through this war.’ And then we rebuild.”