Presented outside the competitive exhibition, Almodóvar's first foray into the western world, lasting just 25 minutes, left his avid fans on the Croisette, where there was some confusion to access the screening room.
ADVERTISING
Dozens of people were left in the rain without being able to enter the overcrowded cinema.
Actors Ethan Hawke, American, and Pedro Pascal, Chilean, are the protagonists of this Almodovarian experiment, filmed in English and with the feel of a rehearsal, before launching into something more ambitious.
In the past, the Spanish director has been tempted on several occasions by Hollywood to film in the United States.
ADVERTISING
“It was my first western and I did it trying not to be anachronistic,” explained Almodóvar.
The short tells the story of a romantic reunion between two men, a sheriff and a cowboy.
“It’s the discussion between two lovers who react completely differently to a night of orgy”, explained the director, among others, of “Ata-me”.
ADVERTISING
The filmmaker has a special relationship with Cannes, where he has competed for the top prize six times. The last time happened in 2019 with his most autobiographical film, “Pain and Glory”. Despite having won several important awards, he never managed to win the Palme d'Or.
“The secret is to rehearse”
The legendary American actor Michael Douglas, who received the honorary Palme d'Or for his career the day before, also had a special meeting with the public.
Nowadays “you can’t do anything without resorting to intimacy coordinators”, admitted the protagonist of “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction”.
ADVERTISING
But the 78-year-old experienced actor jokingly said that as an “expert when it comes to sex scenes”, “the secret is to rehearse”.
“It's like rehearsing a fight scene, you have to prepare a choreography. It starts very slowly and then moves to a faster pace,” she confided, drawing laughter.
The Cannes exhibition began the day before with a much darker tone. The opening night was surrounded by controversy due to the presence of American actor Johnny Depp, who played Louis XV in the French film “Jeanne du Barry”.
ADVERTISING
Depp, who wants to turn the page on the tumultuous legal battle with his ex-wife, also actress Amber Heard, was criticized by a group of French cinema professionals in a manifesto against the presence on the red carpet of “men and women who attack” .
“In the last five, six years, most of what they have read is terribly poorly written fiction”, reacted the actor this Wednesday, during a press conference for the film.
“Monster” and “Le retour” in the pariah
A total of 21 films compete for the Palme d'Or this year.
Japanese Hirokazu Kore-eda presented “Monster”, a story with child protagonists, based on an incident at a school. In 2018, the director won the show's top prize with “Shoplifters (Family Matter)”.
The other film shown this Wednesday was “Le retour”, by French director Catherine Corsini, which is competing for the Palme d'Or for the third time.
The film, which tells the story of a mother and her two young daughters who return to the island of Corsica, where they had to leave under tragic circumstances, is also shrouded in controversy.
The tape was left without public funding after it was discovered that an explicitly sexual theatrical scene, involving an actress under 16, was not declared to the authorities, as required.
Furthermore, some collaborators criticized Corsini for the excessively harsh way in which he directed the filming, according to sources cited by the press.
“Catherine never harassed anyone,” the film’s producer, Elisabeth Perez, assured AFP.
The French director is one of seven female filmmakers competing for the Palme d'Or, a record for the exhibition.
Read also
* The text of this article was partially generated by artificial intelligence tools, state-of-the-art language models that assist in the preparation, review, translation and summarization of texts. Text entries were created by the Curto News and responses from AI tools were used to improve the final content.
It is important to highlight that AI tools are just tools, and the final responsibility for the published content lies with the Curto News. By using these tools responsibly and ethically, our objective is to expand communication possibilities and democratize access to quality information. 🤖
