As commented on the official website of the Cannes Film Festival, yesterday, on the occasion of its 60th anniversary, the most prestigious of the press conferences took place, in which a large part of the directors participating in Chacun son cinéma met.
All of them awarded in a previous edition, have been part of this project, which my colleague Carlanga had already told us about, contributing a short film.
Present at the celebration were: Theo Angelopoulos, Olivier Assayas, Bille August, Jane Campion, Chen Kaige, Michael Cimino, Joel and Ethan Coen, David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Manoel De Oliveira, Raymond Depardon, Atom Egayan, Amos Gitaï, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, Aki Kaurismäki, Abbas Kiarostami, Takeshi Kitano, Andrei Konchalovsky, Claude Lelouch, ken loachNanni Moretti, Roman PolanskiRaul Ruiz, Walter Salles, Elia Suleiman, Tsai Ming-Liang, Gus Van Sant, Wim Wenders, Wong Kar Wai, and Zhang Yimou.
Below I leave you with some excerpts of his impressions on the importance of the Cannes Film Festival:
elia suleiman: It is a place where the films are projected, bought to be distributed. It is certainly the most important festival of all time. Sometimes it’s crazy, because the place requires it. On the other hand, one always returns home with a good memory. It is essential for my films to come to Cannes.
Takeshi Kitano: Regarding Cannes, it is the festival where you can appreciate both the pleasant and the hateful aspects of cinema, both of the industry and of art. The two are in one place. It is definitely the biggest festival in the world.
Roman Polanski: Cannes perfectly symbolizes what a festival should be. When I was still in my film school, all the films that were awarded here were released in Poland. I still remember Jeux Interdits, Marty or 8 ½.
Wim Wenders: Every year, people tell me that Cannes has changed. Similarly, when I came for the first time in 1975, they already told me: Now it is different. I don’t think it has changed. I see it evolve more than change. Of course the festival must always know how to position itself between the circus and its blockbusters and the cinema. Every year is a new definition, a new orientation of the seventh art.
Walter Salles: What Cannes represents for me, above all it is a place of change, a place of discovery, a place of resistance. It is the place that shows that auteur cinema can express itself. A way to reflect specific societies and cultures. In here it feels, we are celebrating the anniversary of a very young girl, who will have a very long life.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: What the festival tries to do is to discover the best directors around the world, the new talents, the new trends and show them off. Cannes will be good, as long as the international productions are.
