Cannes do attitude

WHILE the Oscars is an overblown act of worship of Hollywood by Hollywood, where the stars and directors are perceived as gods, the Cannes Film Festival is a bit more European.

If the Cannes audience doesn’t like your film, they boo. Loudly. Such honesty and egality would be unthinkable in Hollywood, where movie stars and moguls are regarded as gods, no matter how mediocre their output.

The 64th Cannes Film Festival begins on May 11 with Robert de Niro this year’s president of the jury, and opens with Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris. One imagines it will be rather more well received than last year’s Robin Hood remake by Ridley Scott; Cannes has always been about the art of cinema rather than the chi-ching of the box office. This year Ireland is represented by Rebecca Daly’s debut feature film The Other Side of Sleep in the independent Director’s Fortnight. Another entry, Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be The Place, starring Sean Penn, was partly filmed in Ireland and supported by the Irish Film Board.