Opening of Un Certain Regard

Thierry Frémaux showed three minutes of previously unreleased images by Nader Homayoun, produced from rushes of a film on Iranian cinema he had made three years ago. The invited director Jafar Panahi, who was absent from the Festival, talks about a confrontation he had with a policeman after being summoned. The policeman asked him why he didn’t go to live abroad before saying to him: “You will be back”. But after three hours of discussion, once he felt he had done his duty toward National Security, the policeman also said to him: “I loved The Circle”.

Claire Denis, president of the Jury for Un Certain Regard, said she was deeply touched by the extracts shown: “We avoid thinking about the reality of prison, of the border …  it remains abstract. Even yesterday when you presented this empty chair. And suddenly, we see a man’s face and everything changes.” She also said she was very pleased with the choice of the film by Manoel de Oliveira for the opening.

Thierry Frémaux then called on the whole team of Manoel de Oliveira’s film The Strange Case of Angelica: the Brazilian co-producer, Leon Cakoff; the Spanish producer, Luis Minarro; the  French producer, François d’Artemare; the actors Anna-Maria Magalhaez, Pilar Lopez de Alaya, and Ricardo Trepa, and finally, in the words of Thierry Frémaux, “the great, the unique, the indomitable” Manoel de Oliveira.

 

The Portuguese director, who is 101 years old, was given a long standing ovation that he tried in vain to cut short, gesturing with his cane. He dedicated his film to Gilles Jacob, “for everything he has done for film and for the Festival de Cannes throughout his life”.