71st Cannes Film Festival Kicks Off
By Mariam Chanishvili
Thursday, May 10
The 71st Cannes Film Festival kicked off on Tuesday.
Over the next two weeks, the jury will be watching the 21 films competing for the Palme, including new releases from Spike Lee, Pawel Pawlikowski and Jean-Luc Godard.
Three of the 21 films are directed by female filmmakers: Nadine Labaki, Eva Husson and Alice Rohrwacher. Cannes has come under criticism for years for not selecting more female directors.
In the main competition section, the Georgian representation will come from the Tbilisi-based 20 Steps Productions studio, through French filmmaker Eva Husson’s - Girls of the Sun.
Parts of the French/Belgian/Georgian/Swiss coproduction Girls of the Sun, directed by Eva Husson, were shot in Georgia in fall 2017. Golshifteh Farahani and Emmanuelle Bercot play the main characters.
The story written by Husson is set in Kurdistan. Bahar played by Golshifteh Farahani is the commander in chief of the Girls of the Sun, a Kurdish female battalion. She is about to take back the town where she was previously captured by the extremists.
Producer of Scary Mother, Lasha Khalvashi is going to be among the professionals honored at festival for his work in the field.
Khalvashi was picked among Variety magazine’s ” 10 Producers to Watch” for 2018 in April (“Scary Mother,” “Horizon”).
Variety has selected its 10 Producers to Watch for 2018, a diverse mix of producers from international film scene. Variety Producers to Watch was originally launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998.
Aka Morchiladze is the first Georgian writer whose work will be pitched at a literary section at the festival.
Morchiladze’s 2011 novel “obOle” (orphan) will be presented in front of the experts at the festival’s Shoot the Book event with a prospect of its adaptation for a screenplay on May 15.
Georgian producers, directors and promoters are present in festival sections or at the Georgian stand in the pavilion on the French Riviera.
In addition to competition and award sections, eight producers from the Georgia are supported by the Georgian National Film Centre to seek financing and co-production opportunities at the event.
The Cannes Film Festival will last until May 19.
