Cannes Film Festival 2016 Talking Movies

Hello and welcome to Talking Movies, here on the French Riviera. A look

at the lineup in Cannes this year revealed a very strong American

presence, not so much in the form of Hollywood blockbusters like mad Max,

but more in terms of films that represent the directors' personal

vision. New Yorker Woody Allen was on the red carpet on opening night

with Cafe Society, it was the third time that one of his films had got

the opening night slot at Cannes, a record. The film is set in Hollywood

in New York in the 1920s, and it centres on a love triangle with

characters played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kristin Stewart. Brought male

and female relationships are at the heart of this picture. I don't think

that's a very good idea, actually. I am seeing someone. The film, which

got middling reviews, has much to commend it, particularly the

performance of Kristin Stewart playing the woman at the centre of

it all. For Woody Allen, this film represents quite a publishing. It is

his 47th picture and like every other made on his own terms. Hardly

anyone in the film industry has that degree of creative freedom, and he

keeps going despite not being a youngster. I feel useful. Now, I'm

sure one day I'll wake up in the morning and, you know, I'll have a

stroke or something, or... And be one of those people that you see in

a wheelchair. But until that happens I was going to... I was going to

continue to make films. Money Monster, which could be called a

financial thriller, was launched at Cannes as well. Its cast includes

George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Anyone who can get out, get out now.

It is the story of a young man who holds a financial guru hostage

because he has followed Gates's advice and lost a lot of money.

Julia Roberts is the show's producer. The film seems to be a

critique of greed driven financial capitalism in US factual television.

What happens is in the 24-hour news cycle you keep hearing this drumbeat

of these elements and you think oh, my God, the world is coming to an

end, ISIS is going to be on our front step when the reality is it

needs to be put back in perspective. At the helm of this production was

one-time child star turned Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster,

who has directed before but nothing quite so big. She proves herself

adept as a filmmaker. Being a director has always been my dream,

it is something I have always wanted since I was a little girl. To have

the full vision of the film and to have my signature be the one, for

better and for worse, maybe it is terrible, but it is a full signature

on the product. Money Monster follows from previous films, most

notably the classic Dog Day Afternoon. It has a plot which

becomes a little preposterous but after all this film is entertainment

despite being sold as something more serious. They are stealing

everything from us and they are getting away with it as well.

Another American offering starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling was

the buddy comedy Nice Guys, set in the 1970s with Russell Crowe and

Ryan Gosling playing detectives. It was popular with audiences but

showed signs of being tired product. It felt like a product conceived to

meet commercial imperatives rather than anything more original. Some of

the best American films at Cannes were more modest, with less

promotional noise attached. Case in point Loving. Based on real events,

it tells us Tory of an interracial couple, Loving in the 1950s, at a

time when the State bandh mixed-race marriages. The couple's case went to

the Supreme Court and they won with a landmark ruling striking down

rules forbidding interracial marriage. There are no histrionics

in this film, no big speeches, it is very effective despite being quite

restrained. Did you hear me? The beneficial thing of the story is

that it is in trying to preach because the Lovings are not trying

to preach. A way to connect with people is to talk about humans, to

talk about the humanity in an issue, and that I think is what the Loving

story provides. Taken overall, the American movies at Cannes were quite

good. It shows that the auteur theory is still alive, which is of

course no bad thing. Here at the UK Pavilion in Cannes, people are very

well aware that there are two British films in, The Magician this

year. Both were put together by directors working in the social

realist condition. One is set in Newcastle upon Tyne in the

north-east of England and the other rather interestingly in the United

States. The Americans that film, American Honey, had its cast and

British director dancing on the red carpet. The film focuses on the

adventures of the start, who plays a rootless group of young people

travelling from one midwestern community to another selling Magas

magazine subscriptions. There is an intense relationship with the

intense Jake, played by Shia Leboeuf. It is an American road

movie of sorts. -- Shia LaBeouf. What they are selling is a small

potted version of the American dream, they are trying to make their

own version of the American dream and they are trying to sell

themselves, they are working hard at selling themselves which is what

capitalism is all about. I have to speak to the manager. The other

British film came from veteran director Ken Loach. It is the story

of two individuals who find themselves pushed to extremes by an

unsparing state. Daniel Blake is the central character, he is not well

but encounters a bureaucratic nightmare and trying to get out of

it. It is a total indictment of the social welfare system in the UK

which is depicted as being totally heartless. Ken Loach shares that

view. There is a conscious cruelty in the way we are organising our

lives now. The most vulnerable people are told that their poverty

is their own fault. If you have no work, it's your fault you haven't

got a job. Loach's film and its strong reviews showed that this 70

going -year-old director still has it in him to make powerful cinema --

79-year-old director. Sit at your desk and do the job the taxpayer

pays you for. Once again, the lack of female directors in addition at

Cannes this year was notable. Only three of the 21 films up for the

Palme d'Or were made by women but the year was dominated by stories

about women and the actresses who play them. Stories about women are

dominating the competition in Cannes this year. Even male directors

traditionally associated with very macho, masculine movies are turning

to female cast, like Neon Demon, and the director of Old Lawyer, who

brought the Handmaiden, a lesbian love story, to Cannes. But other

directors at Cannes this you have a long history of creating roles for

women, like Pedro Almodovar. Kristin Stewart is back at Cannes with

Personal Shopper, a ghostly thriller set in this world. Women's stories

have been a driving force behind the director's work. I think the most

important, the most exciting thing in how the modern world is changing

is how the status of women is changing. I think there is no

stronger subject, really, so I think it is a constant source of

inspiration. It is a kind of rarity for a male director to be so

inspired by feminine curiosity, and a drive. I think it is awesome to be

seen by somebody so different. But despite the proliferation of

women's stories on screen here at Cannes, getting more women in

prominent roles behind the camera is an ongoing concern. As slow as the

process has been for women to find their voice in cinema, as soon as

you tell them it is OK, as soon as you live by example and not

highlight the fact necessarily that it is a girl doing it but that is it

is accepted and normal and we don't categorise them as female

filmmakers, I think it will become rampant. I think it will become an

immediate response to have more women wanting to tell stories. But

some believe that a gap between women's desire to tell stories and

the opportunity to have their voices heard. We need to figure out and the

industry needs to figure out how it can support women so that they can

have a voice. Because we are half the world. Our stories are just as

important as male stories, and the fact that the narrative of the film

business has consistently been about men having to vision is to tell

stories about women, and I want to see women tell stories about women

as well. Of the three female directors in competition for the

Palm d'Or this year, Tony Edmund and Andrea Arnold with American Honey,

have won plaudits for their very different pictures. What is really

encouraging about the three female director Johnson, The Magician this

year is how different they are. You wouldn't necessarily lump them

together and say women directed these. So American Honey is very

distinctive to its director, and it is linked to films not directed by

women. But the debate about increasing women's visibility and

power in the film industry continues to rage. A number of high-profile

women including Jodie Foster, some are high at, Geena Davis and Susan

's Aaron did art taking part in Women in Motion here at Cannes. --

Salma Hayek. There is much debate about how to bring about change. For

some quotas and positive discrimination are the way forward

but this approach comes with clear risks. I think it is an

exceptionally dangerous road to go down. As soon as you devalued... As

soon as you allow the possibility that people have got in there

through positive discrimination you do devalue the currency itself.

Germany hasn't had a film in competition for eight years but this

year it had won, with a drama about a father daughter relationship. Its

inclusion in the lineup could signal a positive change within the film

industry in Germany, which hasn't exactly been flourishing of late.

BBC Culture's Matthew Anderson reports. Funnily enough, one of the

most hilarious films of this year's Cannes Film Festival comes from

Germany, not a culture that people associate with a rollicking sense of

humour. Toni Erdmann tells the story of a workaholic Management

consultant on a work assignment in Bucharest and a retired piano

teacher with a liking for practical jokes who travels from Germany to

pay her a surprise visit. Confronted with the joyless and of his life, he

puts on the character of Toni Erdmann, a lifestyle coach who

starts making some unwelcome appearances in her life. He invents

this character, Toni Erdmann was like a very radical step. He is

doing, and that part, I mean, on the surface it's funny and its

humourous, but for her as a daughter, underneath, the daughter

is something very aggressive. Imagine your father would do

something like that, appear there in a bar. You are sitting there with

friends, and that is a tough challenge. Can I offer you ladies a

glass of champagne? Toni Erdmann is a comedy but it is also a film about

humour, about the importance of having a sense of humour and it has

some serious things to say about family dynamics, about the pressures

that professional women face, and how working too much can hollow us

out and make us lose sight of the more important things in life. I

think what makes this movie so outstanding is that based on a

really script, you have a comedy of manners, and a family life -- really

brilliant script. And of manners at the same time. And the look of the

movie, it doesn't look even beautiful or anything, it doesn't

try to get us by looking especially gorgeous. I think all of this

together makes it a very good film. And this is my secretary. Other

critics have been equally impressed. At its first press screening here in

Cannes, the movie was greeted with gales of laughter and something

almost unheard of from this tough crowd, spontaneous, non- sarcastic

applause in the middle of the movie. During shooting of the film there

was a point when I said to my producer I am sorry, I think this

will be very, very sad film. So... Mostly I don't know if it will be a

comedy, but it was cool that they laughed so much.

Many have noted the total originality. It is hard to think of

another film quite like this. When I got the script and the invitation

forecasting I thought it was completely out of the usual script.

We did castings and costume. Tony is the first -- it is the first German

film to be in competition at camp since 2008. Why is it that festival

selectors shy away from German movies? Because they aren't good

enough. It has been 80 years that there wasn't a German movie here. --

eight years. What you think is so good about this one? It is more

risky. But the thing about German movies, they don't take risks. She

takes every risk. I was surprised. She really pulls it out and it is

amazing. I'm sorry, my father made a stupid joke. A striking animation

was bought two cans audiences, produced by Studio Gibli. It tells

the story of a man on a desert island who battles against the

mysterious sea turtle. It starts with being passed away on

a desert island. He is alone in nature and he wants to leave the

island and go home and he can't because he is being stopped all the

time and that's where the story develops. What makes this animation

stand apart is that there's no dialogue. It is completely wordless,

but the storytelling doesn't suffer. Far from it. It will certainly make

it easier for the movie to find an international audience, in that

there's no translation to worry about. Not to mention the fact that

it is told in this almost mythic way, where anyone from any country

should be able to see within this very simple story reflections of

themselves. As for the animation it is far from flashy, it is not

computer-generated. It is 2-D hand drawn animation, in that sense it is

classical. It starts being realistic in design and we used actors to

inspire us to get the subtlety of the movements. I am a bit inspired

by the books. Among the director's credits is his Oscar-winning short

Father and Daughter, also wordless. There are similarities between this

and The Red Turtle. What they have in common is that I really love the

strength of the light and shadows. I use shadows a lot in animation. I

tend to be quite sensitive in the acting, in the emotions. Not

cartoony emotions, but more finer movements. At the end of the day the

director has put together a very heartfelt film dealing with

relationships in a natural setting. It may sound corny but I think it is

a film about love. Natural love. He don't have to make big gestures, it

just feels natural. On documentary in the Cannes Film

Festival lineup shows how the magical cinema is being conveyed to

audiences in India through travelling movie theatres, complete

with lovingly maintained old-fashioned projectors. This

machinery longs to the analogue age at its days are numbered. The

documentary examines the changes that are taking place. The Indian

filmmakers put together this documentary, launching their film at

Canon marked the end of an eight-year filmmaking process. More

than anything else this is a documentary that shines a light on

the huge significance of cinema in rural India, by focusing on

travelling mobile theatres. They used to be the only vehicle for

movies to reach the villagers, because they travelled to villages

far from standing theatres. They were significantly embedded in the

cultural tradition of fairs in rural India. So aside from being the

exclusive vehicles, there were also part of a ritual and cultural

tradition that families have been following for so many decades. The

heyday of the travelling cinemas is most definitely over. By one

estimate nowadays they number in the single digits. Their decline has

been hastened by digital technology, which has given communities

everywhere quicker access to movies. The end of the analogue era, a lot

of films are now available on the digital platform, so people can

access films not only through DVDs but also on their mobile phones. The

moment a film is released in the bigger cities somehow it finds a way

into the cellphones and of course piracy is also huge. That's why

people are drawn more, because they want to see the movie is quicker

like everyone else. So less people are coming to the travelling cinemas

because by the time they arrive to the villagers their films are stale

and old. This canst documentary looks at the decline in travelling

cinemas, by focusing on individuals. -- Cannes. The film is

the story of three custody are striving to preserve one of the last

travelling cinemas in the world. We encounter them at this moment when

the world is changing in a fundamental way and the film uses

this as a lens to look at the associations that this custody is

have built into the travelling cinemas over the decades. This is

really a film documenting how way of life has been rapidly disappearing

forefather Lisa have been running travelling cinemas. This film has

been well received. The kits have called it the witchy, a documentary

which shows the 20th century celluloid splendour. -- critics have

called. celluloid splendour. -- critics have

Called it bewitching. That brings this edition of Talking Movies to a

close. Remember you can always reach us online and you can find us on

Facebook. From me and the rest of the Talking Movies production crew

here on the French Riviera it is goodbye, as we leave you with a

performance .