Disclosures at Cannes: Inspirational Moments Behind Great Films

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The 2024 Cannes Film Festival is marked by memorable moments and significant revelations, highlighting the diversity and richness of contemporary cinematic creation.

Parthénope, the latest film by Paolo Sorrentino, stars Celeste Dalla Porta and Stefania Sandrelli in a narrative about beauty and Naples.

Sorrentino explores the passage of time and the memory of what remains. “This film came to me one evening; I thought, this is what interests me: telling the story of time passing and the memory of what remains when time has passed,” the 53-year-old icon of Italian cinema shared with AFP from a Cannes terrace where he enjoys cigarillos and ristrettos. 

His heroine, Parthénope, played by Italian newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta, is born on a luminous morning in the waters of the Mediterranean and into a wealthy Naples family that names her after the city’s founding deity. A siren-woman with captivating beauty, Parthénope grows up, seduces, gets lost in the summer nights of Capri, seeks her freedom, and finds it in an academic career. She spans four decades, reflected by Stefania Sandrelli, from the heights of her sublime decaying villa, living a life of freedom. 

For the character, “love did not aid survival.” “The love of my wife (Daniela, who signs the photography of his films) kept me from abandoning myself in adulthood, at a time when, as I hadn’t been able to do so in adolescence, I was tempted to,” Sorrentino confides. The dialogues, written in an anti-realistic manner, close to aphorism, a method dear to Paolo Sorrentino, who avoids “the boredom of everyday dialogues” and admits to having “the talent, like music, to have these very dense phrases constantly knocking at my ear.” 

British actor Gary Oldman, who plays an alcoholic writer in decline in Parthénope, announced at Cannes that he has been “sober for 27 years.” “I’ve never felt better in my skin,” the 66-year-old actor declared at a press conference. In Parthénope, he portrays American writer John Cheever (1912-1982). “When Paolo told me… I want you to play this sort of sad, melancholic, and drunk poet. I thought: Yeah, okay, I get it.” “It’s no secret, I drank for a long time, and I’ve just celebrated 27 years of sobriety,” he stated on Wednesday at a press conference.

Argentinian director Federico Luis received the grand prize at the Semaine de la Critique, a parallel section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, for his debut film, Simon de la Montaña. In the film, Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro (25 years old) plays Simón, a boy who befriends a group of mentally disabled teenagers in an Andean town.

Among the favorites films competing for the Palme d’Or, American Sean Baker feared that Anora, his film about a sex worker, would spark controversy, but the enthusiastic reception at Cannes confirmed to him that the “oldest profession in the world” continues to fascinate audiences.

Gilles Lellouche is propelled into the race for the Palme d’Or with L’Amour ouf. Gilles Lellouche describes his film on social media as “an ultra-violent musical romantic comedy.” The French actor and director brings together two public favorites, François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos. The film, adapted from a novel by Irish author Neville Thompson, is set in the 1980s in northern France and tells the love story of Jackie and Clotaire, who “grow up between school benches and port docks.”

With AFP