Our film expert Nicholas Deigman talks us through all the hot topics that have got everyone talking in Cannes…
Two of the main talking points at Cannes this year are uncomfortably connected to the current economic gloom (a subject I’m sure you will never bore of hearing about!) Firstly, the International Marché du Film, which runs simultaneously with the festival, has felt the sting of the global recession. With around 4,500 titles up for grabs, the Film Market is usually a bustling furore of buying and selling that could rival a Wall Street trading floor; but this year, with American studios holding back and private investors turning shyly away from any risks, it bore a closer resemblance to a shopping mall on a weekday.
On the up side, one British man has discovered a way to save the global film industry from recessionary blues. Londoner Marc Price has made a zombie flick for just £45, a budget that could have been halved if he had just borrowed a crowbar from a neighbour, but its his first film so we’ll let him off. Colin is the story of a misunderstood, lonely zombie who wonders around a cruel world in an existential malaise.
The other predictable talking point of the festival is the chronically unpredictable Palme d’Or. Almost every year firm favourites fall by the wayside à la Michael Haneke (Caché) and Pedro Almodovar (Volver). European directors with a history of success at the festival are out in force this year. Ken Loach’s witty and thoughtful Looking for Eric pleased audiences and filmmakers alike (Tarantino “laughed to tears” according to Guardian journalist Agnès Poirier), and Lars Von Trier’s disturbing Antichrist shocked audiences with its graphic depictions of genital mutilation. But will these lauded filmmakers be mooted once again by an outsider? Marco Bellocchio, whose Mussolini bio-pic Vincere is being whispered along the aisles as a potential winner, certainly hopes so.
