This May 16, 2016 file photo shows director Jim Jarmusch at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France. Jarmusch’s zombie film “The Dead Don’t Die” will open the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 14. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
NEW YORK (AP) --
Jim Jarmusch's zombie film "The Dead Don't Die" will open the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival.
The French festival announced Tuesday that "The Dead Don't Die" will premiere May 14. While the festival's opening slot is often a separate gala screening, Jarmusch's film will screen in competition for Cannes' top award, the Palme d'Or.
"The Dead Don't Die" stars Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover and others. The festival calls it a "humorous and sometimes scary subversion of the genre but also a tribute to cinema itself."
Focus Features will release "The Dead Don't Die" in the U.S. on June 14.
Cannes' lineup will be announced April 18. The jury that will decide the Palme d'Or will be led by filmmaker Alejandro Inarritu.
A lavish, MGM-style musical is not typical Sundance Film Festival fare. But Sunday night Bill Condon brought such a creation—well, part of one—to Park City, Utah, with his adaptation of "Kiss of the Spider Woman," starring Jennifer Lopez.
Audiences broke out in spontaneous applause during the screening for Lopez's song and dance numbers. She plays an old Hollywood screen siren in a movie-within-the movie. The packed Eccles Theater also gave Lopez, wearing a glittery spiderweb themed frock, a standing ovation after the show.
"I've been waiting for this moment my whole life," Lopez said.
The story, which revolves around the conversations between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, was first a novel by Manuel Puig in 1976 and has been adapted for stage and screen over the years. A 1985 film adaptation starred William Hurt and Raul Julia. Hurt won an Oscar for his performance. On Broadway, it won multiple Tony Awards.
Condon wrote and directed this new version, which is seeking a distributor. Diego Luna plays an imprisoned revolutionary Valentin Arregui, whose new cellmate Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) loves movies, celebrity and glamour and enthusiastically recounts the story of a favorite movie musical, called "Kiss of the Spider Woman" to Valentin, giving them and the audience a break from their bleak reality.
While the film has memorable moments of escapist spectacle, it also delves into serious topics of gender identity. Molina tells Valentin that they don't feel like a man or a woman—which Valentin finds odd at first but grows to understand.
Before the screening, Condon said that one of the things the movie is about is "the attempt to bridge the incredible differences that separate us so often." He quoted President... Read More
