Hi there! Here's my first post from Cannes 2016 - half way through the Festival!

It seems really busy this year with a lot of time taken up with working out the screening schedule for the day and queuing to get in to the more popular films - and I'm trying to see 3-4 films a day. Fortunately the weather has been great - sunny but not too hot (and only a little rain this afternoon).

As before, I'm focusing mainly on Spanish and Latin American films and the films from the main selection - see the Cannes Film Festival website for details of the different categories and films in these sections.



A great start to the Festival with Woody Allen's Café Society which I caught in the 'séance du lendemain' screening on Thursday 12th at the Salle du Soixantième. The film takes a critical look at the glitzy, shallow, gossip-ridden, name-dropping Hollywood society of the 1930s at the same time as luxuriating in the look and style of the period and revisiting many familiar Allen themes.
Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves his New York family home to seek new career opportunities in LA with the initially reluctant help of his uncle, a big-shot agent in Hollywood and immediately falls for his uncle's assistant (Kirstin Stewart). The shifting relationship between these three provides the focal point for the narrative.  Review: Screen Daily Cannes.


Thursday's other highlight was Victoria/In bed with Victoria (N.B. title translation differences!!) , directed by Justine Triet and in the Semaine de la Critique section at the Festival. A compelling, if sometimes slightly muddled, comedy/drama around the interplay between the professional and personal life of  criminal lawyer and single mother, Victoria, and a 'warts and all' portrayal of a self-absorbed workaholic with a chaotic home life and unsatisfying string of sexual encounters effectively presented without descending into voyeurism or eroticism  (great performance by Virginie Efira). Review: Variety.


Virginie Elfira, Justine Triet and Vincent Lacoste at 
Semaine de la Critique screening  of Victoria, 12 May 2016

 Also took in a couple of Spanish films: Toro, directed by Kike Maíllo, is a gangster movie set in Torremolinos where brothers José López (Luis Tosar) and Toro (Mario Casas) are locked in an increasingly violent battle with the the powerful and sadistic gangster Romano and his henchmen. A gripping movie as long as you can stomach the violence.  Review: Hollywood Reporter.  El destierro/The Exile, directed by Arturo Ruiz offers a period piece set during the Spanish Civil War in a Nationalist mountain outpost in winter where Silverio, a hardy rough diamond (who found himself on the side of the military uprising by being in the wrong place at the wrong time) and his new fellow guard, Teo, a fervently religious  Nationalist unexpectedly find themselves in custody of Zoska, a young woman who is a volunteer Republican soldier from eastern Europe. The resulting ménage à trois poses some uncomfortable issues around gender and sexuality which the film fails to effectively address, although it provides an interesting and thought-provoking reflection on loyalty and solidarity in conflict. Trailer: Cineuropa.

More about the following days in my next post!