Speaking from Kyiv, the Ukrainian head of state spoke for about ten minutes during the grand opening of the Cannes Film Festival. He called on the actors of the 7th Art not to be "silent" before the Russian invasion, the MIA correspondent reported.

A few minutes earlier, Vincent Dellerm was singing in a thin voice "How much I love you" and the most beautiful kisses of the seventh art were passing on the screen. The organizers of the grand opening of this 75th Cannes Film Festival, hosted by the Virginia Ephira, have clearly mastered the art of transition.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the closed face he now knows all over the world, appeared from Kyiv on the screen of the Lumiere Grand Theater, as he did in April during the Grammy Awards. And as predicted and requested by Sean Penn, during the last edition of the Oscars. On Tuesday night, the former acrobat, who became a military leader, spent ten minutes trying to mobilize the world of cinema gathered in Cannes.

Volodymyr Zelenski soon mentioned the Bucha massacre. Hell, he says, is sweeter than war. "The theater in Mariupol, where several hundred civilians were killed, is no different from the one where the opening ceremony took place," he said. Before calling on the 7th Art to support his words. He thus quotes the character embodied by Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now" and his replica of the smell of napalm in the early morning hours, to mention the destruction of Ukraine.

- We need a new Chaplin who will prove that cinema is not stupid. The hatred will eventually disappear, the dictators will die. We will continue to fight, we have no other choice (F) I am convinced that the dictator will lose, said the Ukrainian president.

The former actor compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece. "Will the cinema be silent or will it talk about it?" He finally asked, determined to interpellate the actors in the film industry, followed by loud applause in the hall.

Two Ukrainian filmmakers will be present in Cannes this year. Sergei Loznica for "Natural History of Destruction", for the destruction of German cities by the allies during the Second World War, but also the young Maxim Nakonechnji for "Bachenya Metelika", in the selection of the selection "Certain View". The festival added to the program at the last minute the representation of Mariupolis 2, the latest film by Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedarovicius, killed in early April in Ukraine.

The world's largest film festival has also refused to welcome Russian officials, government officials or journalists representing the official Russian line. On the other hand, the voice of dissent will be present: director Kiril Serebrenikov, who could never come to Cannes for political reasons, will open the competition today with his new film Tchaikovsky's Woman in the Palme d'Or.

At the opening ceremony, 60-year-old actor Forrest Whithacker received the Palme d'Or for his career, winning an Oscar for his role as Amin Dada, the dictator of Uganda, in "The Last King of Scotland" (2007) or as the assassin of Jim Jarmusch. . in Ghost Dog (1999). The American actor, who also heads a poverty-fighting charity from South Sudan to Mexico via the Seine-Saint-Denis, is a regular guest on the Croisette, where he received Clint's "Bird" award in 1988. Eastwood.

The Palme d'Or goes "to the artist, to the director, to the UNESCO ambassador, in short, to the citizen of the world," said Pierre Lescourt, the festival's president, at the award ceremony.

Visibly moved, Vincent Lyndon, chairman of the jury for this edition of the Cannes Film Festival, addressed the audience with a dedicated speech. He said he was "moved, proud and very pleased to be leading this exceptional jury".

"Without a doubt, it would be logical, or in any case human, to let my joy burst as I stand before you tonight to chair the 75th edition of this remarkable festival, the largest film festival in the world, to celebrate the event and I enjoy without hindrance the honor bestowed upon me. But am I right? "He wondered because this edition of the Cannes Film Festival is being held after two years of pandemic and amid war in Ukraine."

Should not we, from this platform, which for some time concentrates all the views of the world, evoke the torments of a planet that is bleeding, suffering, suffocating and burning in the indifference of the forces? Probably yes. But what if it is not new or at least useful? (…) Should we use our notoriety, however modest, to speak loud and clear about the voiceless? Or, on the contrary, do we refuse to publicly express our position in areas where we have neither legitimacy nor special competence? "I have no answer," he said.

The chairman of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival then paid tribute to the culture, "a great whole." "Culture is not a pleasant growth or a vain decoration of society. She is not on the side. "It is his center and it will be his remnant," he said. Evoking the history of the Cannes Film Festival, "born of the desire to fight fascism that has distorted European cinema," he recalled the festival's role:

-These selections kept the films whose ambition was not only to fill the halls. This is the function of the Cannes Film Festival, this is its glory. It is this inflexible, artistic and civic line that makes necessary what would otherwise be indecent: to project bright images, superimposed on disgusting scenes that reach us from the heroic and martyr Ukraine; or to bury under the sound of music the silent massacres that fall on Yemen or Darfur.

To conclude, one question: can we do anything other than use the cinema, this weapon of great emotion, to awaken our conscience and shake our indifference? "I can not imagine that," he concluded.

Actress Julianne Moore has officially announced the opening of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Source: MIA