Screenwriter »

• DFCC and surprise film at JDIFF

  February 26, 2012 @ 5:50 pm | by Donald Clarke

  We had an impressively suave line-up of talent at the Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards. Marjane Satrapi, Marian Finucane and Gareth Evans all turned up to accept awards at the perennially diverting soiree in the Irish Film Institute. This year’s (genuinely) hard-working panel comprised: President Tara Brady and Mr Donald Clarke, both of this parish; Ms Brogen Hayes of movies.ie; Ms Nicola Timmins of Average Film Reviews; Mr John Maguire of The Sunday Business Post; Ms Roe McDermott of Hot Press and Dr “Diamond” Dave O’Mahony of Access Cinema. They are all very fine people.

  The eventual winner of best film was Gareth Evans’s The Raid. Working in Indonesia, the Welshman has delivered one of the most fluid, original action films in recent years. Shuffling from rugby match to airport, Gareth swanned in to wave at the punters and express his gratitude. (Apologies for the crappy photographs. My camera failed.)

  

  L to R: Gavin Burke of Phantom FM; Tara Brady, DFCC President; Gareth Evans.

  Marian Finucane, instigator and narrator of Nuala: A Life and Death, joined director Patrick Farrelly to receive their gong for best Irish film. Made for RTÉ, the picture unearths stories about Nuala O’Faolain that fairly rattle the heart.

  

  Marian Finucane and Patrick Farrelly.

  The full list of award-winners is detailed below. Most films will be coming your way fairly soon. A few have not yet received distribution or broadcast dates.

  BEST FILM

  The Raid

  BEST IRISH FILM

  Nuala: A Life and Death

  BEST ACTOR

  Michael Fuith – Michael

  BEST ACTRESS

  Greta Gerwig – Damsels in Distress

  BEST SCREENPLAY

  Footnote

  BEST DOCUMENTARY

  Samsara

  BEST DIRECTOR

  Nuri Bilge Ceylan – Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

  MICHAEL DWYER DISCOVERY AWARD

  Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride

  SPECIAL JURY AWARDS

  Ivan Kavanagh – Tin Can Man

  Ruben Östlund – Play

  Aisling Loftus – Death of a Superhero

  Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi – Chicken with Plums

  The (second) surprise film turned out to be Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must be the Place. I had already seen the picture at Cannes and thought it pretty good. As you will be aware, this is the one starring Sean Penn as an aging rock star, based in Dublin, who sets off across America in search of a Nazi war criminal. I thought the stuff with Penn was really good. He comes across as an unholy — but benign — combination of Robert Smith and Michael Jackson. It’s a very eccentric performance that just about stays the right side of madness. The film seemed less secure in its American sections. The road meandered a little too much and the drama lost a degree of focus. But it’s a very impressive, very original piece of work. You can all see it late next month.

  

• Nuala and DFCC at JDIFF

  February 24, 2012 @ 10:50 pm | by Donald Clarke

  A particularly busy festival grinds towards its close this weekend. We enjoyed the rush and the run. There were plenty of good films and the guests were starrier than ever. I had a very nice night this evening. I got to talk to Marjane Satrapi after the screening of Chicken With Plums, her rather lovely follow-up to Persepolis. I had never met Marjane before, but had been informed that she would give no trouble at all. This certainly proved to be the case. An absolute trooper, she gave good anecdote and confirmed that — in the nicest possible way — she takes absolutely no prisoners.

  As for Saturday, if you are not coming along to the Dublin Film Critics Circle awards at 5.30 in the IFI, try and get a ticket for Nuala: A Life and Death at the Light House. Narrated by my occasional colleague Marian Finucane, the film (to be shown soon on RTÉ) is an impossibly moving study of the life of the indomitable Nuala O’Faoláin. The excerpts from her last interviews with Marian are nearly unbearable and the contributions from her family and friends are consistently touching. The picture also features some amusing insights into the colorful world of Bohemian Dublin in the 1960s. If you can’t make it along don’t miss it on the telly.

  All are welcome at the DFCC event. It generally proves to be a an entertaining, low-key, festive affair.

• Still alive at JDIFF

  February 22, 2012 @ 9:38 pm | by Donald Clarke

  I suppose, in addressing the highlights of my week, I can hardly avoid mentioning that I had a nice chat with Al Pacino yesterday. You can read the interview on Saturday, so I won’t bothering going into too much detail here. I will, however, point out that he was a real gent. He was happy to natter about all the old stuff and seemed very at home to a bit of self-deprecation. The levels of fame that still gather round Pacino are something to behold. Ever play that game “Who would you be in…”? The notion is that, when gathered in the pub, you and your friends discuss, erm, who you would be in, say, Dad’s Army, Reservoir Dogs or Cheers. When playing the Godfather version of the game, everyone wants to be Michael, but most folk know, deep in their sad hearts, that they’re really Fredo. No wonder Al is still such an idol.

  One of the year’s best films was screened yesterday. I have been going on about Markus Schleinzer’s Michael for the last eight months. But the more I think about it the more impressive it seems. This is the Austrian picture about a pedophile who keeps a boy imprisoned in his basement. It hardly needs to be said that the film does not count as light entertainment. But it offers a horribly plausible account of how such a relationship might progress. Undoubtedly some people will think the film in bad taste, but you can’t deny that Schleinzer has thought very deeply about his subject. I don’t envy him that experience. If you want to know more, my interview with Markus runs in The Ticket on Friday.

  Pondering what’s still to come, I enthusiastically suggest that you try to get a ticket for The Raid on Saturday morning. It’s the best Indonesian film you’ll ever see that’s been directed by a Welshman. The good people of the Dublin Film Critics Circle, already pondering their awards, were blasted into oblivion by it. Oh, yeah!

  

• Even Gods triumphs at the Cork Film Festival

  November 15, 2011 @ 7:16 pm | by Donald Clarke

  The Corona Cork Film Festival came to a close on Sunday with the handing out of prizes to a wide and varied array of short films. Among the prizewinners was Phil Harrison’s very touching Even Gods. The picture follows an older addict as he has a moving meeting with his daughter and granddaughter. I tipped it in my report on the festival and was delighted to see it walk away with both the audience and jury prizes for best Irish short. In these circumstances, one would usually say something like “it will be in cinemas any day soon”. But, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we can, in fact, show it to you right now. See below. The full list of winners appears at the bottom of the page.

  56th CORONA CORK FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILM AWARDS 2011

  Best International Short Film

  Aglaée

  Rudi Rosenberg

  France

  Special Mentions:

  -Woman Waiting, Antoine Bourges, Canada

  -Soul Catcher (Sielunsieppaaja), PV Lehtinen, Finland

  Cork Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards

  Two Hearts

  Darren Thornton

  Ireland

  Best Irish Short Film

  Even Gods

  Phil Harrison

  Special Mention:

  Quarantine

  Tadhg O’Sullivan, Feargal Ward

  Claire Lynch Award for Best First-Time Irish Director of a Short Film

  The Art Of Making Friends

  Paul McNulty

  ‘Made In Cork’ Award for Best Short Film

  Rats Island

  Mike Hannon

  Special Mention:

  Brother (Dearthair)

  Joan Mary McCarthy

  Award of the Festival for Best Short Film

  The Wind Is Blowing On My Street (Dar Kouce Baad Miayad)

  Saba Riazi

  Iran, USA

  Audience Award for Best International Short Film

  Silent River (Apele Tac)

  Anca Miruna Lazarescu

  Romania

  Audience Award for Best Irish Short Film

  Even Gods

  Phil Harrison

  Ireland

  OutLook Award for Best LGBT Short Film

  I Don’t Want To Go Back Alone (Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho)

  Daniel Ribeiro

  Brazil

• Venice bigs up the Irish and the devil

  September 10, 2011 @ 8:53 pm | by Donald Clarke

  You have to laugh. Almost all the journos at the Venice Film Festival got it wrong. Many thought that Steve McQueen’s Shame would take the Golden Lion. A large bulk felt that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy was in with a serious shout. In the event, Darren Aronofsky and his jury handed the big prize to Alexander Sokurov’s Faust. Confusion was stoked by the fact that the film played after much of the press delegation had made its way to Toronto (or home). What few reviews there were did not exactly set the sky alight with critical fireworks. “Only time will tell whether this “Faust” is more pyrite than gold” Variety didn’t exactly rave. Well, I have faith in Darren, and Sokurov, director of Russian Ark, is one of the world’s great auteurs. We await its eventual release with eager anticipation.

  

  But was it worth the loss of your soul, Alexander?

  There was great news for the Irish at the closing ceremony. Michael Fassbender, interviewed by Screenwriter in today’s paper, took the best actor prize for Shame. Robbie Ryan, one of whose early jobs was on a short film called My Dinner With Oswald, took the cinematographer gong for Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. Both are now officially giants in their particular fields.

  

  Isn’t that the sort of thing you’d expect to see Michael Schumacher grasping?

  You have to hand it to Aronofsky. I haven’t seen any of the films that triumphed. But the jury’s decision still seems to offer conspicuous support to the sat-upon world of art house cinema. The Silver Lion award to Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma also came somewhat out of left field. Pressing their case home with further force, the committee awarded best script to Yorgos Lanthimos and Eftimis Filippou for Alps. Neither Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy nor Roman Polanski’s Carnage won anything.

  If any cinema pundits got more than a third of these right I’ll mention him or her in my will. (Facetious comments are not legally binding. All offers can be revoked without prior notice.)

• Thoughts from (ahem) Venice

  September 8, 2011 @ 2:18 am | by Donald Clarke

  There goes a gondola. Oh no, my mascara is running down my face because I am weeping in my deckchair. Argh! I’ve just been stabbed by a dwarf in a red anorak. Gosh, I love being at the Venice Film Festival. It’s nothing but glamour and cheap references to great canal-related films.

  

  Screenwriter, yesterday.

  Not really. I’ve never made it to that festival . (Don’t bother with the “boo hoo, poor you” comments. I won’t put them up anyway.)  But it is interesting to ponder the events from afar. In times past, the European film festival circuit was a cavalcade of glamour that really defined coming trends in the art. It’s withered a bit in recent years. Cannes has blown everything else out of the water. Berlin still make some noise. San Sebastian just about registers. Only Venice still manages to wield influence. This is, as much as anything, an accident of the calendar. Arriving in early autumn, the Italian bash fires the starting pistol on the insanely over-extended awards season. Forming a triple whammy with Telluride and Toronto, the Venice Film Festival showcases those awards-friendly films that weren’t ready for Cannes.

  What a line-up they’ve got this year. Steve McQueen’s Shame. Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. Roman Polanski’s Carnage. Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps. Wait for it, wait for it. Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Whatever else you might say about the jamboree, you couldn’t claim it’s dealing in Cannes’s unwanted cast-offs.

  I’ve only seen one of those films and it might be a small masterpiece. Oh, Gracie, I’ve said too much. You’ll have to wait until next week for the full skinny on Tinker, Tailor, but, suffice to say, the long wait — detailed in tedious detail in this place — has been worthwhile.

  Anyway, the main purpose of this post is to persuade you to care about who wins the Golden Lion. Venice is a venerable institution and it should still matter. As is often the case, the head of the jury is a significant factor. Last year Quentin Tarantino (a man I like, incidentally) went stark raving barmy and awarded the top prize to Sofia Coppola’s very ordinary Somewhere. This year the more sober Darren Aronofsky is in charge. Predicting the winner when you haven’t seen the films is — even for Screenwriter — a fantastically idiotic business. But I’ll give it a go. The raves so far have gone the way of Tinker, Tailor, Shame, Alps and — surprisingly, given how theatrical it looks — Carnage. Disappointingly, David Cronenberg’s  A Dangerous Method, a film I’m still looking forward to, has been greeted with shrugs. Wuthering Heights hasn’t generated much enthusiasm either.

  I am betting that Mr Aronofsky and his gang will go for Shame. I talked to Michael Fassbender about the picture today (read all about it in the soaraway Irish Times this Saturday) and he made it sound really interesting and really creepy. The Kerryman plays a sex addict in New York City. The director of Requiem for a Dream should get along with that material quite nicely.

  Sorry, I have to run. Harry Lime has just turned up. Oh no. Hang on. That was Vienna. Wasn’t it?

• The Guard is a smash (and those Fleadh results in full)

  July 12, 2011 @ 7:23 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  This weeks’s box-office news brings interesting tidings.  Both The Guard and The Tree of Life have gone bananas. To deal with the Irish beast first, John Michael McDonagh’s film hoovered up in excess of half a million euro at the nation’s cinemas over the weekend. To put this in perspective, the film managed to make it to the number five spot in the combined UK and Ireland chart on its domestic takings alone. (The picture does not emerge in the UK for another month or so.) Indeed, it was the highest new entry in the chart. A great many movie slots on UK radio shows are going to be very confused by that news. Box-office experts may contradict me, but I would be astonished if an Irish-only release has ever charted so high in the combined territories hit parade.

  So, how did they manage it? It’s a good movie, but plenty of  good Irish movies have bombed. People adore Brendan Gleeson (why wouldn’t they?), but he’s been in his fair share of commercial disappointments. It helps that there’s a movie star in the thing. Don Cheadle may not be all that famous, but his presence assures punters that this is a proper film. It also helps that the distributors picked their release date very cannily. With the decks cleared for some wizard film next week, there was plenty of space for a smaller picture to stretch out and breathe.

  One assumes that — following that kerfuffle we won’t mention again — 2oth Century Fox had a similar plan for The Tree of Life. That also paid off. The picture’s limited release had been a roaring success. Despite the fact that the thing doesn’t really have a story and the characters spend a great deal of time chatting with God, Malick’s confounding picture took £406,000 in the UK and Ireland. That works out at a stonking per-screen average of £5,414. The Guardian reports that the Curzon Soho — by no means an enormous cinema — somehow managed to draw in £18,000. It will be interesting to see, once curiosity wanes and word gets out about its oddness, whether the film develops any serious legs.

  The Guard also managed to pick up the audience prize for best Irish film at the Galway Film Fleadh. The best first feature was shared between Darragh Byrne’s likable Parked and Terry McMahon’s plain barmy Charlie Casanova. The results in full are below. Congratulations to all. This list is pasted from an early press release, so please excuse slightly messy formatting.

  The Best Irish Feature Award:

  Winner THE GUARD

  Director John Michael McDonagh

  Producer Andrew Lowe & Ed Guiney

  The Best Feature Documentary in association with Eugene F. Collins presented by Andrea Martin

  In Second Place: DON’T ASK DON’T TELL

  Director: John C Walsh

  Producer: Tara Power, Joselyn Allen, Daryl Roth

  Winner: BERNADETTE: NOTES ON A POLITICAL JOURNEY

  Directed & Produced by Lelia Doolan

  The Best First Feature has been awarded to joint winners:

  PARKED

  Directed by Darragh Byrne

  Produced by Jacqueline Kerrin & Dominic Wright

  CHARLIE CASANOVA

  Directed & Produced by Terry McMahon.

  Winner of the Galway Film Fleadh Pitching Award

  Rioghach Ni Ghrioghair “Death Rattle”

  SHORTS JURY AWARDS

  The Best First Animation Award in association with the Cartoon Saloon – Presented by Paul Young

  Second Place: The Art of Making Friends

  Directed & Produced by Paul McNulty

  Winner: SIGNS

  Directed & Produced by Vincent Gallagher

  The James Horgan Award for Best Animation in association with Telegael

  Special  Mention: Children in Direct Provision

  Director – Galway Refugee Support Group

  Producer – Sharon Lynch and children resident in Direct Provision Centre’s

  Second Place: The Gentleman’s Guide to Villainy

  Director: Aidan Mcteer

  Producer: Aurelie Gauthier

  Winner:  THE BOY WHO LIVED IN A BUBBLE

  Director: Kealan O’Rourke

  Producer: Brian Willis

  The Tiernan McBride Award for Best Short Drama sponsored by Waveform Studios:

  JOINTLY AWARD TO:

  ASAL

  Director: Tom Sullivan

  Producer: Aislinn Ni Chuinneagain

  AND

  EVEN GODS

  Director:  Phil Harrison

  Producer:  Lisa Barros D’Sa, & Phil Harrison

  The Best First Short Drama in association with Mazars presented by Paul Mee:

  Winner:  PENTECOST

  Direcctor:  Peter Mc Donald

  Producer:  Eimear O’Kane

  The Best Short Documentary Award in association with Studio Solas Teo

  Special Mention

  Halls Without Walls

  Directed & Producer by Mia Mullarkey

  Winner: Needle Exchange

  Director – Colm Quinn

  Producer – Andrew Freedma

  The Donal Gilligan Award for Best Cinematography in a Short Film.

  Michael Lavelle for Mummy’s Little Helper

  The International Federation of Film Societies is proud to award for the first time the Don Quixote Award:

  WINNER: The Boy Who Lived In A Bubble

  Director: Kealan O’Rourke

  Producer: Brian Willis

  30 Second Film Festival Judges Award

  Winner:  RUTH MEEHAN

• Slightly unfortunate photo of Michael D Higgins at the Fleadh

  July 5, 2011 @ 10:47 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Okay, I think we have to tread very carefully here. Here is a photograph of Michael D Higgins, amiable Presidential candidate, launching the Galway Film Fleadh tonight. As you might expect, he delivered a charming oration peppered with melodic sentences in our native tongue. At no point did he threaten to invade Poland. Nothing like that would ever cross this veteran liberal’s mind.

  But this really  is a slightly unfortunate (not to say badly taken by me) image. The faux-searchlights and the hand gesture do nudge the mind in a somewhat dubious and entirely unintended direction. You’ll have to make up the jokes yourself. It’s more than my position is worth.

  For the record, the opening film, Darragh Byrne’s Parked, was an admirable piece of work. Colm Meaney plays a recently returned emigrant who is forced to live in his not particularly roomy motorcar. He makes friends with a drug-addled youth and starts a  not-quite romance with a middle-aged Finnish lady. It’s very gently handled and very well acted.

  There’s plenty more to see over the rest of the week. Fireworks will surely fly tomorrow when Keith Allen, director of Unlawful Killing, that Princess Diana conspiracy documentary, takes the stage for a discussion following the first public screening of his film. It’s all go at the Fleadh.

• The decline of the Edinburgh Film Festival

  June 2, 2011 @ 6:11 pm | by Donald Clarke

  It would be overdoing it to refer to a conspiracy of silence. But the British film media seem oddly reluctant to point out that one of the world’s oldest film festivals — the oldest by some reckoning — is in a state of serious decline. The Edinburgh International Film Festival was, until recently, scheduled to run at the same time as the (though they wouldn’t use this word) main arts Festival and, for that reason among many, was, to my mind, among the most enjoyable film events on the planet. Every year, the Scottish bash managed to combine a near perfect blend of oddball discoveries and mainstream delights. I’ve met such varied folk as George Romero, Al Gore and Sam Mendes at the event. If you could stand the constant attacks from mimes waving leaflets, the jamboree was always a hoot and an education.

  

  EIFF director James Mullighan does not look in any way desperate.

  Early signs of rot arrived in 2008  when — for reasons that are too banal to go into — the Film Festival was moved away from the arts extravaganza’s slot in August to a vacant space in mid-June. The atmosphere was a tad less hectic. There were fewer punters prowling the streets in search of entertainment (though, it should be acknowledged, there was also less competition for their attention). The festival found itself placed a little too close to a certain event in the south of France.

  My suspicions were aroused when, during the 2008 event, I attended a supposed gala unspooling of Errol Morris‘s Standard Operating Procedure. The screening at Cineworld in Fountainbridge — which the great man attended — was awash with far too many empty seats. You had to feel a little embarrassed for everyone concerned.

  Over the succeeding years, the standard of films and the calibre of attendees steadily declined. Evidence that all was not well in the upper echelons arrived earlier this year when actor Tilda Swinton and critic Mark Cousins — two stalwarts of the festival — made their excuses in the politest possible manner. To that point, we were working on the assumption that Edinburgh had taken a dangerous — but interesting — swerve towards the unpredictable. The notion was that celebrity curators would, in the manner of London’s Meltdown Event, programme a series of eccentric screenings and discussions. Such luminaries as  Isabella Rossellini, Gus Van Sant and Jim Jarmusch were all expected to put their oar in. This notion now seems to have been tided away.

  When, a month ago, this year’s programme was announced, there were groans of weary disbelief. It’s nice to hear that the sparky Irish comedy The Guard is opening the festival. Paul Fraser’s My Brothers is also worth watching out for, but that film premiered way back in July 2010 at the Galway Film Fleadh. I suppose the new film by David Hare is something of an event (yeah, I can hear you hooting with excitement). This is, however, an extraordinarily underwhelming line-up.

  It seems that the collapse has now become too conspicuous to ignore. Last Sunday, the admirable Jason Solomons, gregarious film watcher for The Observer, stuck his neck out and declared: “The world’s longest-running film festival is in peril and there appears little can be done as the start date of 15 June approaches.” Jason points out that one of the festival’s supposed big films, Lucy Walker’s Countdown to Zero, actually made its UK debut at Edinburgh last year (its world premiere was a full 13 months ago at Cannes). He also notes that the festival has ditched the Michael Powell award for best British film.

  Once one of the world’s great cultural events, The Edinburgh International Film Festival now looks like a mid-ranking (at best) provincial knees-up. No doubt, punters, press and film-makers will still enjoy the bohemian atmosphere of the adorable Filmhouse cinema. Pints will still be consumed in the lovely bars of the UK’s most attractive city. But something important has been lost. In an era of funding cuts, it will be a challenge to turn things around for next year.

  It is customary to end such pieces with a jaunty line in the vein of “I’ll tell you how it all works out in a few weeks.” But, I’m afraid it doesn’t look as if there is any reason for The Irish Times to attend this year. Boo!

  

• Trailerspotting gawps in disbelief at The Tree of Life.

  December 16, 2010 @ 9:04 pm | by Donald Clarke

  It’s here! It’s here! It’s here! The first trailer for The Tree of Life has arrived. A few months ago, we speculated that, its release delayed more often than the last Guns ‘n’ Roses album, Terrence Malick‘s much anticipated saga might be some sort of post-modern hoax. After all, it is now nearly two years since the first expected date of arrival. Heck, maybe it is still a hoax. If so, Malick and his gang are taking their prank very seriously indeed. Though just two-minutes long, the promo is something of an epic in itself. Here goes…

  

  The first thing to say is that, by golly, it doesn’t half look and sound like a Malick film. His last two pictures, The Thin Red Line and The New World, have specialised in transposing gnomic musings — “A man ain’t no more than grace dancing to a solitary flute.” — with beautiful images from nature. Enjoy the parrot and wait for the aphorism. What do we start with here? Spooky shots of primordial mists, the planet radiating concentric shock-waves and a surging wave are followed by one of those characteristically blissed-out voices saying: “There are two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.” This is like starting a Carry On film with a shot of Barbara Windsor’s bosoms. We immediately know where we stand. There’s more of this at  1’13” when a voice  says: “Some day we’ll fall down and weep and we’ll understand it all. All things.” If you say so, Terry.

  The central story appears to be the oldest and the most worn-out in American cinema: fathers and their sons. From what I can gather, Brad Pitt is a harsh man who treats his boy in a somewhat uncompromising manner. So awful is the stress that he grows up to neurotically chew the scenery with a gusto that only Sean Penn can manage.

  The trailer suggests, however, that the creaky story is told with a grandiosity that makes 2001: A Space Odyssey look like Garfield 2: A Tail of Two Kitties. Planets collide. Supernovae boil. I’m betting that — remember the picture allegedly features dinosaurs — the impact in the early section is the asteroid fall that many believe caused the extinction of those giant lizards.

  Now, there is every possibility that The Tree of Life could turn out to be a folly in the style of, say, Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, but no even half-serious cinema lover could fail to be excited by the prospects thrown up here.

  Incidentally, among all the swirling enigmas, we do, at least, get a firm answer to one question. It seems as if the title carries a definite article. It’s The Tree of Life, not Tree of Life. Many more mysteries are still in the ether. Lord alone knows when they’ll be addressed. No firm release date for Ireland has been confirmed. The studio is, however, suggesting that the picture will open in the US on May 27th. Aha! That is, informed readers will note, two days after the end of next year’s Cannes Film Festival. So, for the third year running, the picture is pencilled in for that event.

  Then again, it might vanish one more time. What if the Cannes authorities refuse to accept it for the competition? Even the French wouldn’t be that willful. Would they?