Cannes Film Festival 2016

Today the Cannes Film Festival comes to an end. There have been so many film stars and well-known directors who have attended the festival this year either to present their film or as guests that I´ve decided to post this collage made with the posters of the films which have taken part in the official competition so that you can do your own research and discover the story that hides behind every poster.

 

One of the first films which were premiered was Money Monster and even if this film wasn´t part of the official competition, it managed to hog the limelight thanks to its famous director and its star-studded cast. Jodie Foster is the film-maker of this film which aspires to be a denunciation of the greed of Wall Street and, at the same time, it pays attention to the sort of TV programmes that we watch these days.

Another image that caught our attention was the one of Geena Davis and  Susan Sarandon who were reunited after 25 years for an award – the Women in Motion Award – obviously if you are not too young or you are really a film buff, you must know that these actresses were the protagonists of the groundbreaking film Thelma and Louise.

Films are made with images, evidently there are more ingredients that are part of a film and I´ve written about this aspect on some occasions: there are words and there is music but the origin of cinema is linked to the power of moving images and that´s why, the organisers of the Cannes Film Festival are so careful and so thoughtful when it comes to choosing the official poster for the festival. This year, they have also decided on an iconic image even if this may be less familiar to those who are not into films, and this is the reason why they have chosen such a symbolic image: “The official poster for the 69th Festival de Cannes was designed using stills from Jean-Luc Godard´s film Contempt. It's all there. The steps, the sea, the horizon: a man's ascent towards his dream, in a warm Mediterranean light that turns to gold. As an image it is reminiscent of a timeless quote used at the beginning of Contempt: "Cinema replaces our gaze with a world in harmony with our desires”.

I have borrowed the explanation from the festival´s official website and I think that I had to it because this image is so reminiscent of the cinematic world that it is really powerful but at the same time, it is so full of symbolism that it may be difficult to understand for quite a lot of people. To put it in a nutshell, by choosing  the still of a film that is about making a film – a  film that had such an impact on the history of cinema – the  poster tells us about the world of cinema par excellence.

What do you think about this year´s official poster for the 69^th “Festival de Cannes”? I´ve commented on the posters from the previous editions in the blog, if you compare this year´s poster with the others, which one is your favourite one? Do you feel that this year´s choice was the right one? Why do you feel so?