The Cannes film festival — the world’s greatest movie showcase — celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
AFP asked actors and directors who made their names at the festival to recount their highs and lows at the star-studded event.
Celebrated Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first experience of Cannes was in 1999 and remains a particularly poignant memory.
“As it was the (Directors’) Fortnight and not the competition, things were a little more relaxed. I remember I was not overly dazzled — on the contrary, I had rather a good time,” he said.
“It was the first time I had seen the Mediterranean Sea, the first time I had been to the south of France. Everything I did was a first for me so in that sense yes, I was impressed.”
But the director’s most “unforgettable” memory came four years later when his film “Bright Future” was selected for competition.
In the same competition, “there was a Clint Eastwood film, ‘Mystic River’. I didn’t get to meet him directly, but when we got to the red carpet, I saw Clint Eastwood go up the steps. There he was before me. Just then I didn’t look at him as would a director but as a fan.”
Canadian actress Monique Mercure, who won best actress at Cannes in 1977 for her role in “J. A. Martin Photographer”, knew she had arrived in another world when she showed up to her first press interview on the beach.
The female “journalist arrived topless to interview me. It was absolutely incredible,” she said.
She then decided to skip the premiere of her film and “we ended up on the beach drinking champagne with director Jean Beaudin and (screen partner) Marcel Sabourin.”
Sabourin “picked up the Palm for me, a very small broach whereas these days it’s a great big (Golden) Palm. At 86, I have very good memories of Cannes but also very bad ones as I wasn’t able to go to pick up the award and the diploma,” she said.
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain was in Cannes for the first time in 2008 for the press screening of his black comedy “Tony Manero”.
“Olivier Pere, then artistic director of the (Directors’) Fortnight, had chosen this film, and timed it just after the ceremony which saw Jim Jarmusch win the Carrosse d’Or” award, he said.
“I chatted with Jarmusch who told me what the festivals mean to him. I learned many things. It was unforgettable — that evening, the press screening, that film and that festival changed my life.”
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