Heidi, Yseult, Diane: Best and worst dressed at the Cannes Film Festival
BEST
HEIDI KLUM
If you're going to break the rules, you might as well look fabulous while you're at it. With Cannes organisers calling for less-revealing outfits and oversized gowns, Klum went for a dreamy Ellie Saab gown with flower-petal details. The dramatic train, high slit and minimal accessories achieved a laid-back beauty look.
ANDIE MACDOWELL
No stranger to turning heads at Cannes, MacDowell stunned in a smoking all-black tuxedo ensemble. The wide-leg trousers helps highlight the cinched waist and glittering silver heels, with her grey hair pulled back with a boyish, side-sweep bang.
WAN QIANHUI
The actress was on cloud 9 with her puffy cloud-like dress. The strapless bodice in a softer silk texture shines, while her bare neck highlights the dangling silver earrings she wore.
YSEULT
A lover of classic outfits when attending Cannes, Yseult was breathtaking in an elegant black and white gown, featuring a tailored black cape finished with a matching train. For accessories, she went for leather opera gloves — to avoid a monotonous look — topped with diamond wristbands that matched her giant neck piece.
HALLE BERRY
The internet was buzzing when Cannes 2025 jury member Berry revealed she made a last-minute change for her red carpet outfits. The debut look was a black and white striped maxi dress from Jacquemus, rather than the Guaurav Gupta outfit that would have been deemed too voluminous. Perhaps as a cheeky option, Berry rocked the gown, featuring a cropped train stuffed with tulle to give it body, as seen at the designer's spring 2025 runway show.
MITCHELL AKAT MARUKO RAAN
She rocked up as Medusa in 2024, but this year sported a head-to-toe, leopard-print catsuit. Merging with her invisible heels, the look also features a dazzling top with the same effect — and a leopard head protruding from her bust. Chunky gold accessories helped finish the daring look, while an unpredictable approach was taken with her makeup, as seen with the skin-tone matching lipstick.
WORST
DIANE KRUGER
At first sight, one can best assume Kruger was without options, after the last-minute ban Cannes oranisers placed on revealing or voluminous looks. However, this outfit certainly looks like the one she was intending to wear.
Let's start with the reflective blue, sequin gown, with a matching floor-length shawl and feather trimmings. To make it worse, the outfit features a white inlay at her bust that mimics a loop neck. It also matches the bulky headscarf, which nods at Old Hollywood fashion, but falls flat due to it having too many elements.
STEPHEN PAREZ-EDO MARTIN
Martin is not the first sports star to attend a red carpet at Cannes, and there's just no reason he chose this disappointing getup — which was all about his medal and had nothing to do with the style expected of him on the day.
EMMA STONE
The nude dress is not the best option for Stone's pale skin tone. Especially with the dull column dress that dominates the look — which is made worse by the bib that she could have asked the Louis Vuitton team to remove.
KATYA MTSITOURIDZE
While Mtsitouridze looks stunning in her metallic two-piece outfit, it's a dated Balmain look that would best work for the MTV VMAs or other social awards.
Silvstedt was going for a princess look, but seems to have pulled off an evil stepsister level of gauche. From the tonal colour blocking to the clumsily employed floral appliqué effect, the gown was better off for a child actress — who would have paired it playfully.
ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD
As part of his new fashion relationship with Saint Laurent, Skarsgård has leaned into a risqué take on fashion. The look is taken from the house's 2025 men's fall show, which featured numerous kinky elements, as seen with Skarsgård's look. While the concept worked on the runway, it translated as biking shoes that Skarsgård had forgotten to take off.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
29-05-2025
- Daily Maverick
From Cannes 2025: Five standout films you should watch next
With the Cannes Film Festival acting as a very early awards season indicator, these are the most acclaimed and notable films to put on your Must Watch List in 2025. The Cannes Film Festival is about more than Riviera-side schmoozing, 15-minute standing ovations and their booing flipside (plus the new addition of lengthy blackouts). The iconic film festival is an early indicator of potential award season contenders. Last year alone, Anora, which took home the festival's highest honour, the Palme d'Or, went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Fellow Oscar winners The Substance, controversial Emilia Pérez, and Animated Feature upset Flow all premiered at Cannes. Notably, before that, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite made the journey from Palme d'Or to Academy Award in 2019-2020, while legal drama-mystery Anatomy of a Fall picked up Best Original Screenplay at several awards ceremonies following its 2023 Palme d'Or win. The point is that it pays to keep an eye on what stands out at Cannes, whether competing (see the full 2025 winner's list here) or simply screening. These are the premieres from the 78th Festival de Cannes that you should keep a lookout for at local cinemas and film festivals in the coming months. Anti-authoritarianism earns accolades Film has always been a powerful medium to critique social and political injustice, and this year the Cannes main competition jury seemed eager to reward those movies vocal about power abuse and despotism. Case in point: the 2025 Palme d'Or went to It Was Just an Accident, from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has repeatedly been hit with filmmaking bans, travel restrictions and prison sentences from his country's authorities. Acclaim for It Was Just an Accident doesn't appear to be performative, though. Narratively straightforward, accessible, but also thought-provoking, the film sees an apparent everyman kidnapped by people who suspect that he may have been their prison torturer. Can they overrule their doubts and take revenge? Honourable mention: The only film to earn two awards at Cannes this year, The Secret Agent also features anti-totalitarian themes. Scoring Best Director for Kleber Mendonça Filho, and Best Actor for Narcos' Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent is a genre-hopping Brazilian thriller that explores how Carnival was used as a front in the 1970s to make the then-military dictatorship's opponents disappear. The latest auteur efforts For decades, the Cannes Film Festival has been catnip for the world's most acclaimed filmmakers. This year was no different, with Wes Anderson debuting his latest quirky all-star effort, The Phoenician Scheme, a few days before it comes to US cinemas on 30 May. Benicio del Toro plays a 1950s industrialist who, in the middle of a spate of assassination attempts, names his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton), a nun, as his heir. The good news is that if you found Anderson's last few efforts over-styled and underwhelming, The Phoenician Scheme is apparently a return to enjoyable form. Largely thanks to Threapleton. Honourable mention: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington reunite for the first time in almost 20 years for Highest 2 Lowest, an English-language reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. Washington plays a successful New York City record producer forced into a ransom scenario that tests his morals. The film is already lined up for an Apple TV+ debut on 5 September. Queer experience on screens The Cannes Film Festival is always welcoming of LGBT+ content, even having an independent Queer Palm accolade for films that excel in their depiction of non cishet experience. There were several contenders for the award in 2025 (it eventually went to The Little Sister), but the most intriguing is the rule-bending romance Pillion. Described as a gay version of Babygirl, this directorial debut from Harry Lighton sees Harry Potter's Harry Melling enter into a sub/dom relationship with Alexander Skarsgård's aloof biker. It's kinky but also tender in its exploration of consensual power dynamics within a relationship. Honourable mention: South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, who previously made the likes of Moffie and Queer Palm winner Beauty (AKA Skoonheid), debuted historical gay romance The History of Sound at Cannes this year. Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor star as two men who connect over their mission to record American folk music circa World War I. The comparisons to Brokeback Mountain are there by default. A quick second shout-out also must go to Honey Don't!, a consciously B-grade detective comedy from Ethan Coen, which sees Margaret Qualley's lesbian private investigator hook up with Aubrey Plaza's cop. Charlie Day and Chris Evans also star. Of families and generations It's been called Arthouse with a capital A, but historical drama Sound of Falling, from German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski, emerges from Cannes heralded as something boldly original due to its storytelling approach – which dips into and interweaves the lives of four girls on a farm in northern Germany over the course of a century. It turns out that women's experience doesn't really change, with trauma having a way of seeping through time. Considered a grim watch, Sound of Falling was a tied winner of the Jury Prize (alongside Sirat), which is typically bestowed on up-and-coming filmmakers seen as driving the industry forward creatively. Honourable mention: The Grand Prize is Cannes's second highest honour and that went this year to Sentimental Value, from festival favourite Joachim Trier. Could this Norwegian drama, about the complex relationship between sisters, and daughters and fathers, finally earn Stellan Skarsgård an Oscar nomination? Also worthy of a Must Watch List spot is My Father's Shadow, the first ever Nigerian film to make it onto the festival's Official Selection. In his feature debut, British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr. has told a semi-autobiographical tale with his brother Wale, set against the backdrop of the 1993 Nigerian election. Siblings spend a day with their estranged father (Sope Dirisu) and learn surprising things. The film earned a Camera d'Or Special Mention. One to talk about Finally, if you're looking for the most divisive movie release of Cannes 2025, that dubious honour has to go to Eddington, the latest from Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid filmmaker Ari Aster. Is it an escalating parody of American divisiveness? Does it actually harbour MAGA leanings as it jeers at mask mandates and other liberal ideas? With a wider release set for July, you'll have to watch this moody modern Western, which pits Joaquin Phoenix's small-town sheriff against Pedro Pascal's mayor in the early days of the Covid pandemic, with their friends and neighbours taking sides, and things turning violent. DM
eNCA
24-05-2025
- eNCA
Cannes hit by power cut as film festival draws to a close
CANNES - The Cannes film festival drew to a close on Saturday, promising to overcome a major power cut in order to hand out its prizes at a VIP-studded ceremony later. A wry Iranian film about political prisoners and a Ukrainian-directed drama about despotism are among the frontrunners after almost a fortnight of red carpets and politically charged statements. French actor Juliette Binoche and her jury will announce the winner from the 22 films competing for the Palme d'Or for best film. The best-reviewed contenders include Iranian director Jafar Panahi's "It Was Just an Accident" and Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa's study of tyranny in "Two Prosecutors", according to analysis from Screen magazine. But cinema bible Variety predicted a triumph for Norwegian director Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value", a moving tale about a quietly fractured family starring Elle Fanning. It got an extraordinary 19-minute standing ovation after its premiere on Thursday. Rumours buzzed around the Riviera resort on Saturday morning about the likely winners, but the traffic did not. Traffic lights were knocked out by the power cut, causing major snarls, while the electricity supply was briefly cut at the film festival headquarters. Organisers said they had switched to an alternative supply, "which enables us to maintain the events and screenings planned for today in normal conditions, including the closing ceremony". The cause of the outage has not been announced, but police sources told AFP it was caused by a fire, probably an arson attack, on a nearby electricity substation. - Politics - Amid the red carpets and parties, this year's Cannes Festival has been politically charged, with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as US President Donald Trump major talking-points. AFP | Miguel MEDINA The Gaza war has been on the minds of some of the festival's guests, with more than 900 actors and filmmakers signing an open letter denouncing "genocide" in the Palestinian territory, according to organisers. Binoche, "Schindler's List" star Ralph Fiennes, US indie director Jim Jarmusch and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange -- in town to present a documentary he stars in -- are among the signatories. Speaking at a press conference on Friday, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, however, said that the festival felt like a "bubble of indifference". Trump's presidency was denounced by US filmmaker Todd Haynes as "barbaric", while Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal admitted it was "scary" to speak out against the Republican leader. - Awards - Other awards have already started to be announced. The first Chechen film to screen at the Cannes Festival -- "Imago" -- won best documentary, while the film about the life of Assange -- "The Six Billion Dollar Man" -- picked up a special jury prize on Friday. AFP | Miguel MEDINA In the secondary Un Certain Regard section, Chilean filmmaker Diego Cespedes won the top prize for "The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo", which follows a group of trans women living in a desert mining town in the 1980s. French actor-turned-director Hafsia Herzi won the unofficial Queer Palm for "The Last One", a coming-of-age tale about a teenage lesbian Muslim living in Paris. "I wanted to show that there were no borders in friendship, in love," Herzi said. Earlier in the week, "Useful Ghost", an off-the-wall Thai LGBTQ ghost story packing a daring political punch, was awarded top prize in the Critics' Week sidebar section. On a lighter note, a sheepdog that features in Icelandic family drama "The Love That Remains" won the Palm Dog prize for canine performers in festival films, organisers announced. Icelandic director Hlynur Palmason cast his own pet, Panda, in his poignant story about a couple navigating a separation and the impact on their family.
TimesLIVE
20-05-2025
- TimesLIVE
Nigeria's first film in Cannes lineup explores masculinity, family dynamics
With My Father's Shadow, Nigeria's first film in the Cannes Film Festival's official selection, director Akinola Davies Jnr wanted to create something deeply personal, he told Reuters. The film had to mean "something to me, to him (my brother), to my family, to our community, I guess to masculinity in general," Davies said about the film competing in the second-tier Un Certain Regard category that he wrote with his brother, Wale. Davies' first feature takes place over one day in 1993, when two brothers' absent father, played by Gangs of London star Sope Dirisu, shows up unannounced and takes them to Lagos. Their father is there to try to recoup some money owed from his employer as the country is on edge after the outcome of the first elections in a decade under military rule is annulled. Newcomers and real-life brothers Godwin Egbo, 11 at the time of filming, and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo, then eight, play the young siblings in the semi-autobiographical film that's been picked up for distribution by streamer Mubi. "Nigeria was going through a time where there was a lot of enthusiasm for this idea of a statesman who was going to lead us to potential," similar to the boys' relationship with their father, said Davies, who was raised between London and Lagos. "Both things being so sort of strong and dominant, but equally super vulnerable and super fragile, I think the tension sort of played off each other really well," said Davies. Dirisu, a British actor born to Nigerian parents, said the film made him take a deeper look at what it means to be a father and how Nigeria fits into his personal identity. "There were a lot of things I had to interrogate for the role, but it was exciting," the actor told Reuters. Davies' film is one of several strong contenders competing in Un Certain Regard this year, with actors Harrison Dickinson, Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson also in the race with their directorial debuts. The Guardian gave My Father's Shadow four out of five stars, calling it a "subtle and intelligent coming-of-age tale" while industry publication IndieWire gave the "beautifully remembered drama" the grade of B+. Davies hopes the movie's inclusion at Cannes will pave the way for more African films at the festival. "African stories are out there," he told Reuters, but they need to be able to get to festivals such as Cannes to be seen. When there's willingness from other areas of the world, and points of access, however, the films can come through, he said.
