Palestine hasn’t gone away, you know
Cannes likes its guests to remain tight-lipped on political issues. Try telling that to Pedro Almodóvar. And everyone else.
Almodóvar, prominently displaying a Free Palestine badge, bossed a press conference with his declaration that “Europe must never be subjected to Trump”. The Spanish film-maker blasted censorship, suggesting that the United States is “not a democracy right now”, and insisted that artists have a “moral duty” to speak out on Gaza.
The director’s countryman Javier Bardem, in town to promote his blazing performance as a bullying autuer in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s competition contender, The Beloved, doubled down: “Everyone is beginning to realise – thanks to the younger generation, who is more aware of situations we’re experiencing quite directly on our phones and on other screens – this is unacceptable. It cannot be justified. And there can be no reason, no explanation for this genocide.”
Unsurprisingly, the Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty, a regular Ken Loach collaborator and a member of this year’s Cannes jury, used the festival’s opening press conference to call out the blacklisting of artists who have spoken out for the Palestinian cause.
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“Isn’t it fascinating to see someone like Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza?” Laverty said. “Shame on Hollywood people who do that.”
The Hacks star Hannah Einbinder, who’s now featuring in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, has also weighed in, insisting that speaking out on Palestine is worth the risk. She praised artists such as Sarandon and Melissa Barrera, who’ve faced ostracisation for their views. “The cost of not speaking is higher,” she told Variety, later remarking to The Guardian that the moral cost of silence outweighs any career risk.
Remember, in 2024, when Cate Blanchett wore that Jean Paul Gaultier gown that may or may not have referenced the Palestinian flag? There’s no ambiguity now: “It’s a sad state of affairs when film festivals suddenly become the only places where one can talk about wars, conflicts and genocides, as if they’re going to be solved here,” Blanchett said during her Cannes Q&A.
What’s a Dernsie?
A Dernsie – a term coined by Jack Nicholson – is “added dialogue or added behaviour that is not on the written page”, Bruce Dern explains in the splendid new documentary Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern.
The 89-year-old veteran walked the red carpet alongside his daughter Laura, who is in town for the Cannes-set fourth season of The White Lotus. Here’s what else we learned from the doc.
Bruce Dern, despite playing grizzled bad guys opposite John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, is actually dead posh. His father ran a law firm alongside Adlai Stevenson – later the US vice-president – before founding the American Natural Gas Company. His grandfather was secretary of war for US president Franklin D Roosevelt, and his great-grandmother founded Rockford women’s college.
Dern’s parents, whom he describes as Waspy, disowned him when he decided to act, starting with a stint under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio alongside the likes of Paul Newman and Marlon Brando.
Dern is a long-distance runner and (as he told this newspaper in 2013) a sometime rival of Ronnie Delany; he had to quit running (for all of two months) after a heart attack three years ago. An article in Runner’s World magazine in 2015 estimated that Dern had already covered more than 165,000km. He used to do 300km weekend treks from Malibu to San Diego.
