As at the Berlin and Venice festivals, the smart kids of cinema generally show up for Cannes, as they have religiously made the pilgrimage this year, beginning on May 12. But unlike in Berlin in the dead of winter and on the Venetian lagoon’s rather fabulous Lido at the far end of the Med’s back-to-school moment, the Cannes festival usually brings with it a kind of spring-fresh breeze. Of course, it’s also the South of France, so the setting is naturally more hopeful than anywhere else.
Except for this year, as the bellicose zeitgeist thunderheads crashing about in the world immediately outside the festival — Hormuz/Gaza/Beirut/Tehran/Tel Aviv/Doha/Abu Dhabi/Dubai, to name just a few missile destinations, not to mention the overarching intra-European Russia-Ukraine conflict just up the road a piece from the Croisette.
