For an important edition – number 70- the Cannes Film Festival is bringing out some big names, many filmmakers who have now become “regulars”, from Sofia Coppola to Todd Haynes, from Michael Haneke to Jacques Doillon and Francois Ozon, to Roman Polanski.
Italy, which is evoked at every edition – this time Claudia Cardinale is on the poster and Monica Bellucci is the host – for the second consecutive year is camping out with the icons but has no films in competition.
Acting as a counterpoint to this “vacuum” in the most important and certainly most glamorous section is the heavy presence of young filmmakers in the parallel sections: in Un Certain Regard we nd the debut work by Annarita Zambrano, “After the war”; also making his debut in the Quinzaine Des Réalisateurs is Roberto De Paolis with “Cuori Puri”.
Jonas Carpignano with “A Ciambra”, and Leonardo Di Costanzo with “L’intrusa” are on their second work; “Sicilian Ghost Story” is also the second film by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza and will have the honor of opening the Semaine de la Critique.
It is not simply a question of seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.
Cannes 70 could provide some useful pointers about the work that needs to be done, even though this does not seem to be the spirit of the new Italian Cinema Law.
It is a collection of rules that – whilst awaiting the implementation decrees – penalize the substance of more di cult cinema (which inevitably identifies itself with that of younger talents), favoring automatic criteria over selective criteria in the distribution of funding.
The problem of the generational turnover in our film industry, worryingly evidenced by the pulverizing of Italian international distribution companies, is promptly confirmed at Cannes 2017. There is not even one Italian company among the foreign vendors of the films mentioned: Pyramide International for “After the war”, Lux Box for “A Ciambra” and The Match Factory for “L’intrusa”, “Cuori Puri” and “Sicilian Ghost Story”.
The exception that proves the rule is “Fortunata”, the other of the two films selected for Un Certain Regard which, despite being directed by the not-so-young Sergio Castellitto, is being sold abroad by the young Italian company True Colours.