By Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer
Leo Carax's "Annette," starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver, will open the 74th Cannes Film Festival on July 6, festival organizers said Monday.
"Annette" is Carax's first English-language film and the French director's anticipated follow-up to his celebrated, surreal 2012 film "Holy Motors." Set in contemporary Los Angeles, "Annette" stars Driver and Cotillard as a glamorous couple — Driver plays a stand-up comedian, Cotillard a famous singer — whose first child is "a mysterious girl with an exceptional destiny," according the festival's description.
"Every Leo Carax film is an event. And this one delivers on its promises," said Pierre Lescure, president of the festival. "'Annette' is the gift that lovers of cinema, music and culture were hoping for, one that we have been yearning for during the past year."
Cannes was canceled last year due to the pandemic but is planning — "with confidence and determination," the festival said Monday — an in-person edition this summer, two months later than its usual May dates. Spike Lee is set as president of the jury. Selections are to be announced at the end of May.
No North American release date has yet been announced for "Annette," which Amazon Studios is distributing in the U.S. The film's release in France will coincide with its Cannes premiere.
"We couldn't have dreamed of a more beautiful reunion with cinema and the silver screen, in the Palais des Festivals where films come to assert their splendor," said Thierry Frémaux, Cannes' general delegate. "Carax's cinema is an expression of these powerful gestures, these mysterious alchemies that makes the secret of cinema's modernity and eternity."
Tilda Swinton Explores Assisted Suicide In Pedro Almodóvar’s 1st English-Language Feature
Although "The Room Next Door" is Pedro Almodóvar's first English-language feature, Tilda Swinton notes that he's never written in a language that anyone else truly speaks.
"He writes in Pedro language, and here he is making another film in another version of Pedro language, which just happens to sound a little bit like English," Swinton said.
Set in New York, Swinton stars as Martha, a terminally ill woman who chooses to end her life on her own terms. After reconnecting with her friend Ingrid, played by Julianne Moore, Martha persuades her to stay and keep her company before she goes through with her decision.
Beyond the film's narrative, Swinton said she believes individuals should have a say in their own living and dying. She acknowledges that she has personally witnessed a friend's compassionate departure.
"In my own life I had the great good fortune to be asked by someone in Martha's position to be his Ingrid (Julianne Moore)," Swinton said.
She said that experience shaped her attitude about life and death: "Not only my capacity to be witness to other people in that situation, but my own living and my own dying."
Swinton spoke about "The Room Next Door," Almodóvar and he idea of letting people die on their own terms. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Tackling that role, what was the challenge to get into the character?
SWINTON: I felt really blessed by the opportunity. So many of us have been in the situation Julianne Moore's character finds herself in, being asked to be the witness of someone who is dying. Whether that wanting to orchestrate their own dismount or not, to be in that position to be a witness is something that I've been... Read More