Cannesversations

Welcome back to our coverage of the 77e of the Cannes Film Festival! Episode 4!We (Eliana & Patrick) look forward to sharing our first reactions and giving a sneak peek at the festival's ongoing films and events.In this episode, we are joined by Łukasz Mańkowski, an independent film critic and programmer for the annual Five Flavours Asian Film Festival, which will take place this year between November 11-20 in Warsaw, Poland. Check it out!We catch up on day nine of twelve to discuss the following films:Desert of Namibia |ナミビアの砂 by 山中瑶子 Yamanaka Yoko (Quinzaine des Cinéastes | Directors Fortnight)Caught by the Tides | 风流一代 by 賈樟柯 Jiǎ Zhāngkē (Competition)An Unfinished Film | 一部未完成的电影 by 婁燁 Lóu Yè (Cannes Special Screening Section)and briefly :Black Dog | 狗阵 by 管虎 Guan Hu (Un Certain Regard)Viet and Nam by Truong Mihn Quý (Un Certain Regard)Blue Sun Palace by Constance Tsang |曾佩裕 (Semaine de la Critique | Critics Week)Coming Soon... ?Anora by Sean Baker (Competition)All We Imagine As Light by Payal Kapadia (Competion)Miséricorde | Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie (Cannes Première)Grand Tour by Miguel Gomes (Competion)Parthenope by Paolo Sorrentino (Competition)and more...You can find Łukasz's work on Senses of Cinema, Asian Movie Pulse, MUBI Notebook, etc!For Polish speakers, you can read his recent Jia Zhang Ke Caught by the Tides review here!You can also follow him on X.Thanks for listening!Comments or suggestions or want to get in touch? -> cannesversations@proton.meCredits:Image: Cannes 77e poster © Shochiku Co., Ltd. – Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991) / Graphic creation © Hartland Villa + Official Bird PosterSound:Intro: EFF Open Audio License for Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saëns, Camille - Aquarium) by Neal O'Doan (Piano) Nancy O'Doan (Piano), and Seattle Youth Orchestra Pandora Records/Al Goldstein Archive.Extro: Quinzaine des Cineastes Intro Extract Music: Cyril Moisson | Piano: Frédéric Fortuny

Welcome back to our coverage of the Cannes Film Festival! Episode 2!We (Patrick and Eliana) look forward to sharing our first reactions and giving a sneak peek at the festival's ongoing films and events.In this episode, we talk on day four of twelve to discuss the festival's Quinzaine de Cinéastes opening film, Ma Vie Ma Gueule | This Life of Mine by Sophie Fillières & competition film Bird by Andrea Arnold.Coming soon:Ma vie Ma gueule | This Life of Mine by Sophie Fillières (Quinzaine des Cinéastes)It Doesn't Matter by Josh Mond (acid)Une Langue Universelle by Matthew Rankin (Quinzaine des Cinéastes)Kinds of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos (Competition)and more...Thanks for listening!Comments or suggestions or want to get in touch? -> cannesversations@proton.meCredits:Image: Cannes 77e poster © Shochiku Co., Ltd. – Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991) / Graphic creation © Hartland Villa + Official Bird PosterSound:Intro: EFF Open Audio License for Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saëns, Camille - Aquarium) by Neal O'Doan (Piano) Nancy O'Doan (Piano), and Seattle Youth Orchestra Pandora Records/Al Goldstein Archive.Extro: Quinzaine des Cineastes Intro Extract Music: Cyril Moisson | Piano: Frédéric Fortuny

This week, Patrick and Eliana discuss Marcel Carné’s 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise), which appeared in the 2011 Cannes Classics section. Filmed during the Nazi Occupation of France and released as the first film following its liberation, the film has continued to charm audiences in France and abroad with its gorgeous set design, iconic actors, and wit-infused characters, a result of the core collaboration between set designer Alexandre Trauner, screenwriter Jacques Prevert, and composer Joseph Kosma.Spectatorship and performance are at the heart of this farcical and bittersweet film, where four men vie for the radiant yet fugacious Garance as she flits between them, and they amongst themselves on the grand Boulevard du ‘Crime.’ It is a film about action and re-action, the verbal and the non-verbal, in a city too small for undying dreams.Resources:Affron, Mirella Jona. "Les Enfants Du Paradis: Play of Genres." Cinema Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, 1978, pp. JSTOR.Ebert, Roger. “Children of Paradise.” RogerEbert.com,Forbes, Jill. Les Enfants Du Paradis, British Film Institute, 1997.Mancini, Marc. "Prevert: Poetry in Motion Pictures." Film Comment, vol. 17, no. 6, 1981, pp. 34-37. JSTOR.Nye, Edward. Deburau. Pierrot, Mime, and Culture, Routledge, 2022.Picherit, Hervé. “A Strange Child of Paradise: The Artistry of Arletty’s “Self” in Les enfants du paradis.” Camera Obscura, Vol. 32, No. 1, Duke University Press, 2017.Reid, Tina. “Marcel Carné on Children of Paradise: Forty-Five Years Later” The Criterion Collection, 20 Sept. 2012,Sadoul, Georges. "The Postwar French Cinema."Hollywood Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, 1950, pp. JSTOR.Sellier Geneviève. « Les Enfants du paradis dans le cinéma de l'Occupation.” 1895, revue d'histoire du cinéma, n° 22, 1997, pp. 55-66.Turk, Edward Baron. Child of Paradise. Marcel Carné and the Golden Age of French Cinema, Harvard University Press, 1989.Sound:EFF Open Audio License for Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saëns, Camille - Aquarium) by Neal O'Doan (Piano) Nancy O'Doan (Piano), and Seattle Youth Orchestra Pandora Records/Al Goldstein Archive.Excerpt

For the last episode of Cannesversations this year, Eliana, and Patrick are joined by critic friends Öykü Sofuoğlu (this marks Öykü’s second time on the podcast; check out our Cannes episode on About Dry Grasses and May December) and Lawrence Garcia to look back at their favorite films of 2023.Follow Öykü & Lawrence on Twitter/XBelow, you first find all our honorable mentions, followed by our individual Top 10-6 films.Honorable MentionsÖyküEvil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorcese)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)Here (Bas Devos)LawrenceMusic (Angela Schanalec)The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams)Notre Corps (Claire Simon)In Water (Hong Sang-soo)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)ElianaAmiko (Yusuke Morii)MusicSparta (Ulrich Seidl)Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)The Human Surge 3PatrickForms of Forgetting (Burak Çevik)A Wild Roomer (Lee Jeong-hong)Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (Elene Naveriani)MusicEureka (Lisandro Alonso)De Facto (Selma Doborac)There Is a Stone (Tatsunari Ota)Remembering Every Night (Yui Kiyohara)This Closeness (Kit Zauhar)May December (Todd Haynes)Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)Top 10Öykü10 Yannick (Quentin Dupieux)9 Orlando, My Political Biography8 Riddle of Fire (Weston Razooli)7 Notre Corps6 La bête (Bertrand Bonello)Lawrence10 Totem (Lila Avilés)9 Cerrar los ojos (Víctor Erice)8 In Our Day (Hong Sang-soo)7 The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (Joanna Arnow)6 Forms of ForgettingEliana10 Passages9 Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry8 Yannick7 The Delinquents6 May DecemberPatrick10 Concrete Valley (Antoine Bouge)9 Notre Corps8 Cerrar los ojos7 Here6 La bêteAt the end of the second episode, we asked Öykü and Lawrence about writings they are proud of or happy with. Öykü interviewed Radu Jude for Mubi’s Notebook, which you can find here, and Lawrence referred to his 15,000-word deep dive into David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Make sure to check both of them out!We wish all of you a happy year of 2024 and are hopeful for many more episodes to come in the new year!

On this episode of Cannesversations Patrick and Eliana discuss Tsai Ming-Liang's 2009 in-competition Cannes film, Visage (臉 | Face). Commissioned by the Louvre Museum and sprinkled with the ghosts of Nouvelle Vague and Truffaut's own muses, the Taiwanese director's own muse, Lee Kang Sheng, wades through halls of grief and desire while directing a film based on the incandescent and timeless biblical Salomé.Through long durational takes, absurd situations, and a composed acumen of transience, Tsai's cinema captivates with just one face, leaving behind a body of work that lends itself in equal parts to theatrical and institutional dissemination.Resources/Credits:Bordeleau, Erik. "The Care for Opacity – On Tsai Ming-Liang’s Conservative Filmic Gesture." NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies, 1 (2012), No. 2, p. 115–131. DOI: www.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/15052.Bordeleau, Erik. "Soulful Sedentarity: Tsai Ming-Liang at Home at theMuseum." Studies in European Cinema, 10:2-3, 179-194, DOI: 10.1386/seci.10.2-3.179_1.Hughes, Darren. "Tsai Ming-liang." Senses of Cinema, May 2003, https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/tsai/.Lim, Song Hwee. Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness. University of Hawai'i Press, 2014.Tsai, B. 2017. The many faces of Tsai Ming-liang: Cinephilia, the French connection, and cinema in the gallery. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 13 (2): 141–160, https://doi.org/10.21315/ijaps2017.13.2.7Villiers, Nicholas de. Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy. Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang. University of Minnesota Press, 2022.Visage - Press Kit Cannes.Sound:EFF Open Audio License for Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saëns, Camille - Aquarium) by Neal O'Doan (Piano) Nancy O'Doan (Piano), and Seattle Youth Orchestra Pandora Records/Al Goldstein ArchiveIntro Interview

This week Patrick and Eliana discuss Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 Cannes Jury Prize winner, Festen (The Celebration). The inaugural Dogme 95 film is filled with frenetic energy that put Denmark back on the filmmaking landscape as it attempted to break free from that which was mainstream and conventional.Resources:C. Claire Thomson. Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen. University of Washington Press, 2013.Liliana Pedrón de Martín. “Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (1998). An Attempt to Avoid Madness through Denunciation.”The Couch and the Silver Screen. Psychoanalytic Reflections on European Cinema, edited by Andrea Sabbadini, Brunner-Rutledge, 2003, pp. 94-99.Götsch, Dietmar: „Schimmer des Vergangenen. Überlegungen zu Thomas Vinterbergs Film Festen.“ Mediale Wirklichkeiten, edited by Andrea Nolte, Schüren, 2003 (Film- und Fernsehwissenschaftliches Kolloquium 15), pp. 19–26. DOI: doi.org/doi:10.25969/mediarep/14375.Jesper Jargil. De lutrede. Jesper Jargil Film, 2002Cast and crew interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24lXd8EmMASound:EFF Open Audio License for Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saëns, Camille - Aquarium) by Neal O'Doan (Piano) Nancy O'Doan (Piano), and Seattle Youth Orchestra Pandora Records/Al Goldstein ArchiveInterview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcveW3hH7gQ