A LOOK BACK AT THE 22nd EDITION
The mainstay axis of the festival comprised previews of 12 films, most notably Portrait of a Lady on Fire directed by Celine Sciamma, which was screened in the main competition of last year’s Cannes festival. Another prominent preview was Arnaud Desplechin’s thriller Oh Mercy, also presented in the main competition in Cannes. The programme also included director Anne Fontaine’s new film White as Snow starring Isabelle Huppert. Last year’s preview section, which brought an unusually strong representation of lady directors, offered Rebecca Zlotowski’s An Easy Girl, in Cannes presented in the Quinzaine des realisateurs section, and debuting director Lou Jeunet’s Curiosa, a dramatic period romance imbued with eroticism.
The Festival also delighted lovers of the poetics of the French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, the famous co-author of the Little Nicholas (Le Petit Nicolas) series. Audiences enjoyed the comedy Raoul Taburin, a film based on this artist’s same-name comic book, and a new premiere of Last Year at Marienbad, a cult classic directed by the famous French filmmaker Alain Resnais.