Organisers of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival – the 72nd in its long history – have unveiled the poster for this year’s prestigious event which takes place in the south of France in just a couple of weeks. The poster, beautiful as ever with a distinct orange hue this year, depicts the late filmmaker Agnès Varda ‘perched on the shoulders’ of a technician as she shoots her very first feature, La Pointe Courte. This is beautiful.
Photo: La Pointe courte © 1994 Agnès Varda and her children, Montage and design: Flore Maquin / www.flore-maquin.com
All the way up.
As high as she could go.
Perched on the shoulders of an impassive technician.
Clinging to a camera, which seems to absorb her entirely.
A young woman, aged 26, making her first film.
It is August 1954: we are in the Pointe Courte neighbourhood of Sète, in the South of France. In the dazzling summer light, Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret explore their fragile love, surrounded by struggling fishermen, bustling women, children at play and roaming cats. Natural settings, lightweight camera, shoestring budget: with La Pointe Courte (presented in Cannes, in a screening on the rue d’Antibes, in 1955), the photographer from Jean Vilar’s Théâtre National Populaire is paving the way for a young cinema, of which she will remain the only female director.
The Cannes Film Festival 2019 poster has been delivered just a few days before the announcement of the films to play at this year’s event, which takes place down in Cannes from 14th – 25th May. The announcement of the competition films, as well as the special presentations and the films that will play out of competition will be announced in France this coming Thursday. There is much speculation, as ever, as to what will play with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and the Elton John biopic Rocketman as two high-profile pics that could premiere down on the famous Croisette. All we know for sure is the opening film, which this year will be Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, which will play on the evening of the 14th. It is certainly an interesting choice, but a welcome one at that.
More info on the festival as it comes our way.
