CANNES FESTIVAL - Film critics and festival jurors: two divergent forces that make the weather for the eleven days that the festival lasts. And yet, there's hardly any consensus between the two, with nary an exception. Last night, "I, Daniel Blake" won the Palme D'Or. I'll venture that this is the film both jurors and press met each other halfway on. With last night's win Loach joins that small club whose members--eminent directors

I’ve watched all twenty-one films in competition this year and must give credit to Thierry Frémaux and his team for having put together such a strong program. I room with one of France’s most eminent TV critics and there’s been some grousing coming from him and from some around the press rooms about the questionable quality of the films this year. But it seems to me that every year people are complaining about the mediocrity

Before he wrote a novel and directed a film Jonathan Littell was, for a long time, an international aid worker. He managed big-scale logistical operations in Africa and, throughout his life, attended to war fronts from Bosnia to Syria as part of humanitarian relief teams. Littell, who doesn’t consider himself an optimist, is no stranger to the savagery of man so it’s no surprise, therefore, that he should be so persuasive when writing or making films about it.

PARIS, this morning - One tweet. That’s all I could manage to send from the Cannes Festival’s press conference, the yearly event before-the-event held in a large movie theater at the top of the Champs Elysées. The network (wifi or cellular) quickly crashed, enveloping the event in a blanket of secrecy. After the conference I rushed into a bar nearby so that I could order myself a 7 euro-bottle of water with fizz and do some work.