Film still of Bagdad Café (Out Of Rosenheim) © RR
Reopening of the Bagdad Café at the Cinéma de la Plage
More than a film, Bagdad Café is an experience. It's the unsettling atmosphere of this establishment lost on route 66, both colourful and dusty, where lonely souls run aground. The film is 30 years old and is enjoying a revival in Cannes in a restored version, screened in the presence of the director, Percy Adlon, at the Cinéma de la Plage.
After a quarrel with her husband, Jasmine, a German tourist, washes up at the Bagdad Café. Her encounter with Brenda, the embittered owner, gets off to a bad start. But as one whimsical customer after another passes through, the two women forge an extraordinary friendship.
In our memories, Bagdad Café, is an excellent song, "Calling You". Composed in an hour by Bob Telson, it is performed in the film by the Gospel singer Jevetta Steele, aged just 24 at the time. The song earned Bagdad Café a nomination at the Oscars for the best original song and enjoyed a long life throughout the world, covered by Jeff Buckley, Céline Dion, Etta James and many other artists.
The film itself has also enjoyed a long life. First in 1990, with the adaptation of Bagdad Café as a series, with Whoopi Goldberg as the owner – a role she had refused for the film. Then in 2005, Percy Adlon turned his hand to converting his film into a musical. A part of his team followed him, including the composer Bob Telson and the singer Jevetta Steele, this time on stage, accompanied by the infinite grace of the dancer Bianca Li.
A StudioCanal presentation. Digitisation and 4K restoration. Project completed by the Alpha Omega Digital lab in Munich and conducted under the constant supervision of director Percy Adlon. Original negative, conserved inLos Angeles, treated in Munich for the scan nd the image-by-image restoration.
