PARIS - On Thursday it was announced that Canal Plus, a France-based media conglomerate that began in 1984 as this country’s first privately-owned television, would be definitively pulling out of the Cannes Festival as its main sponsors. Cannes, and Canal as it’s known more simply, have been in a collab for the last 28 years, the latter beaming the opening and closing ceremonies into hundreds of thousands of homes, its familiar logo omnipresent

IT’S ALIVE! The Cannes Festival, much like the sphinx rising […]

The Cannes Festival will indeed take place this year, two months later than usual. In a press release sent this afternoon by email, the festival said the 2021 edition would run from the 6th to the 17th of July. Cannes would thus take place about a month after the government of France will have been able to complete dissemination of the covid-19 vaccine nationwide, the idea being that, for France, at least, the coronavirus will presumably be under control.

Los Angeles, Calif. | Epic Pictures and DREAD have announced […]

PARIS - Finally, the suspense is over. Thierry Frémaux, programmer of the Cannes Festival, and Pierre Lescure, President, released today the names of the films that would've been screened at Cannes this year, had the event taken place. As we all know, the world went tits up in March, everything got canceled because of a wayward virus, including the Festival, and Donald Drumpf recently held a Bible in front of a shuttered church

It's Sunday, May 24th. Normally I would've been be at the Cannes Festival for the 73* edition, the first of this new decade, hunkered down in the press room, gulping my umpteenth cup of coffee, with friends and colleagues, typing out the final reviews of this 2020 edition, running communication with others working from their hotel rooms, getting confirmations, or denials, about the latest rumor from the Villa

And  now, for the nearly-ritualistic Cannes Festival press release that announces little, leaves much to speculation and wraps up with a note of mystery while flirting with contradiction--and causes much collective eye-rolling in people, one would assume? It did in me, at least. I am rolling my eyes right now, at this strange bird of a message received in my inbox at 6 p.m. Paris time. It began thus: "Following the declaration

Canceled, not canceled. And now--maybe--merely postponed? The Cannes Festival, in a PR pas-de-deux that has sowed confusion and let on few key details, has issued a press release last night. In its usual imperfect English (but their heart was in it), the Cannes communiqué went :

"Today, we have made the following decision : The Festival de Cannes cannot be held on the scheduled dates, from May 12

Tonight in Hollywood, and across the globe, it's all about "Parasite." “Parasite” by the Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, netted four Academy Awards on Sunday, winning in the Best Film, Best Director (Bong Joon-ho), Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay categories. What a winning streak! Joon-Ho made history, too, in the process. This is the first time that a non-English-language film won for Best Film at the Academy

Is Covid19, a.k.a. novel coronavirus, going to spell the death of the Cannes Festival this year? I say, I sure hope not. And, I really don't think so. But the signs, they're worrisome. According to the powers-that-be, France is currently in what is known as Phase Two. That's when a virus has entered the country and efforts are underway at containing it. Sibeth Ndiaye, President Macron's spokesperson, has hinted that a French coronavirus