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Cannes 2023 – ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Red Carpet video coming – impressions; ‘The Zone of Interest’ and ‘In Flames’ reflections…

Cannes 2023 – ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Red Carpet video coming – impressions; ‘The Zone of Interest’ and ‘In Flames’ reflections…

Cannes 11pm (CET)

Day 5 – half way of the Cannes Film Festival and here’s our blog post to be unpacked in video and more text soon….

WOW. WOW. WHAT an evening we have just had here – covering the red carpet for the world premiere of the Martin Scorsese film, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.

This is Scorsese returning to the Red Carpet at Cannes after a hiatus of some years and what a way to come back too – with legend Robert De Niro and star Leonardo DiCaprio. As is the way here – no interviews, only pictures and video – and we have the latter.

It was hugely thrilling to see these three icons on the Red Carpet and to be joined by the Native American actors who also play a prominent role in this film.

The Red Carpet finishes and photographers and video crews dispersed…This was our position

It is set in Oklahoma in the US in the 1920s and deals with the violation of Native American rights to their land. A crime family move in and quickly establish themselves through what came to be known as a ‘reign of terror’.

It was great to see Scorsese and his stars salute the crowds and revel in the attention.

We have near exclusive video of the red carpet action (we were one of 22 video crews), which also saw artist/performer/actor Sapna Choudhary, who lives in Haryana and is well-known in North India, walk the red carpet too ahead of the main stars this evening.

Watch out now for our video from the Red Carpet – subscribe to our Youtube Channel, click the notification bell and never miss!

And…

Elsewhere, writer-director Anurag Kashyap – often referred to as India’s version of Quentin Tarantino, has landed up in Cannes. His film, ‘Kennedy” enjoys a midnight screening on May 24 as part of the official selections here.

ACV’s Brigitte Leloire Kerackian
and Anurag Kashyap

Kashyap has been to Cannes many times – he told us with 10 films back in 2016. (See that interview here). That time he came with ‘Raman Raghav 2.0’ – a crime caper and is best known for his film ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ which premiered in Cannes in 2012 – and as one of the backers of the international hit, ‘The Lunchbox’ which enjoyed its world premiere the following year in 2013.

ACV’s Brigitte Lenore Kerackian met Kashyap at a private mini-festival, the French Riviera Film Festival (May 20-21) at the Eden Hotel, in the town.

Organisers presented Kashyap with a Special Industry Excellence award – they presented Nawazuddin Siddiqui with the same award last year.

Last night, Sailesh Ram, editor of www.asianculturevulture.com saw ‘The Zone of Interest’ and it left a very profound mark on him. British director Jonathan Glazer has only done a handful of films (if that) but this is in artist in very clear and precise phase and it should be admired for that alone.

The Zone of Interest‘ Coutesy of A24 and Festival De Cannes

The film has Palme/Oscar/Bafta written all over it. It is strikingly original in execution – almost like a documentary. Yet it is fiction and covers one of the darkest periods in recent history – in many ways, the darkest – the massacre of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime that took power in Germany.

Based loosely and possibly unrecognisably to British novelist Martin Amis’ novel of the same novel, this film is set in the concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

The camp commander ‘Rudolf Hoss’ builds a dream life for his young family – while dealing in the factory murder of Jews and other people the Nazis deemed as “undesirable”. Glazer’s film is a cold, dispassionate meditation on horror and how our essential humanity can be subverted, diverted and ultimately corrupted to serve the most evil of ends. People should be talking about this film for a long time – even after this awards season (starting in September) ends.

Earlier yesterday (May 19), Ram also saw the Pakistani film, ‘In Flames’.

Mariam (Ramesh Nawal) and Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar)

This enjoyed its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight (Quizaine for short) . In this, a family made up of a mother, daughter and younger son, suffer the bereavement of the head of their household and Mariam (Nawal) the oldest daughter is assumed to take responsibility. An innocent romance leads to a dark road and from there, there is no looking back for the family. It is also a powerful film, though as you might expect from a first time feature director Zarrar Kahn, there are one or two things that detract from what is a very fine show – and another director of vision and power has emerged from the country, which last year produced Saim Sadiq’s beautiful, if troubling and uncomfortable, ‘Joyland’. Just as any good film should be really…

We hope to have more on these films and from the festival in the coming days, keep watching Youtube (subscribe!) and following updates on socials and looking at the website.

For now, over and out from a murky and slightly cold Cannes.
SR

Main photo: Natalie Barrass, acv videographer and Sailesh Ram (editor acv)

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Written by Asian Culture Vulture