Latest news with #CoteDAzur
BreakingNews.ie
25-05-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Suspected arson causes second major power outage in south of France
A second major power outage hit south-eastern France, this time in the city of Nice, after a suspected arson damaged an electrical facility. Police have not yet established a link between the blackout that affected parts of Nice as well as nearby cities of Cagnes-sur-Mer and Saint-Laurent-du-Var on Sunday, and a power outage on Saturday that disrupted the city of Cannes during the closing day of its renowned film festival. Advertisement The Nice blackout started around 2am and left some 45,000 households without electricity. Employees stand outside a shop during an electricity outage in Cannes, southern France (Natacha Pisarenko/AP) The city's trams stopped and power was briefly cut to the Nice Cote d'Azur airport during its overnight closure hours. Power was fully restored by 5.30am, according to the energy provider company Enedis. The Nice public prosecutor said a criminal investigation has been opened for 'organised arson'. Advertisement On Saturday, two other installations in the Alpes Maritime department were damaged in what officials also suspected to be arson, temporarily cutting power to 160,000 homes, including events at the Cannes Film Festival. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi condemned Sunday's attack and said the city had filed a complaint. 'I strongly denounce these malicious acts targeting our country,' he said on X. He ordered all sensitive electrical infrastructure in the city to be placed under police protection. Advertisement 'These actions can have serious consequences, particularly on hospitals,' Mr Estrosi said at a press briefing on Sunday. 'As long as the perpetrators haven't been caught, we will remain on high alert.'
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Cannes goes kinky! 'Fetish fashion' takes over red carpet as stars don their finest leather looks amid film festival's crackdown on 'naked' outfits
Movie stars have brought A-list fashion to the red carpet on the Cote d'Azur during this year's Cannes Film Festival - but as the organisers have implemented a dress code crackdown, an unexpected trend has emerged. In a first for the festival, a wave of celebrities appeared at premieres and photocalls donning their finest leather garments - whether in statement boots, biker jackets or full frocks. From Alexander Skarsgard's eyebrow-raising thigh-high 'fetish boots' to Zoe Saldana pairing her black gown with a biker jacket and Nicole Kidman in a corseted leather top, the celebs have truly embraced the divisive material on the traditionally formal Cannes red carpet. Skarsgård has taken a leaf out of Margot Robbie 's style book by 'method dressing' throughout the festival, wearing outfits that match the theme of his film Pillion, which he has been promoting. The 48-year-old plays Ray, a biker gang leader, in the film, which made its debut to rave reviews at the festival, and he's been dressing in leather as an homage to his character. During a screening for the film on Sunday, Skarsgård smiled alongside his costars wearing a pair of leather Loewe trousers and matching motorcycle boots, a white vintage t-shirt and aviator sunglasses. He posed up a storm, showing off his leather ensemble much to the delight of many of his fans. 'I'm never getting over Alexander Skarsgard in leather pants, GOOD LORD,' one woman tweeted. At the premiere of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Zoe Saldaña gave classic glamour an edgy twist by wearing an leather coat over the top of her sleek black Saint Laurent gown 'Alexander Skarsgård wearing leather pants for the premiere of his new queer film…I'm obsessed with this man, you don't understand,' another remarked. 'The one thing Alexander Skarsgård is going to do is play up the theme of his film on the red carpet,' someone added. Later that evening at the film The Phoenician Scheme's red carpet premiere, the actor upped the ante and wowed fans by pairing his sleek formal suit with a pair of Saint Laurent 'fetish' boots that went well up past his knees. The thigh-high boots with a loose fit and buckle detailing were a stark contrast to the dapper double-breasted tuxedo with silk lapels he styled them with. 'Alexander Skarsgård in these kinky Saint Laurent boots,' one fan commented online, and another wrote: 'Love a man in a thigh high.' And Skarsgård isn't the only one to jump aboard the 'fetish dressing' trend. Nicole Kidman donned an edgy Balenciaga leather corseted jacket as she was presented the 2025 Women In Motion Award during the film festival on Sunday. The A-lister looked incredible as she embodied 'motocore' style in the corset-style leather jacket, which she teamed with low-rise jeans and a chunky belt. At the premiere of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Zoe Saldaña gave classic glamour an edgy twist by wearing an oversized leather coat over the top of her sleek black Saint Laurent gown. Later that evening, the actor upped the ante and wowed fans by pairing his sleek formal suit with a pair of Saint Laurent 'fetish' boots that went well up past his knees She clutched the jacket so it sat below her shoulders while posing for and waving to the flurry of photographers alongside her husband, Marco Perego. Gabbriette brought out her inner spy at the Mission Impossible premiere, opting for a head-to-toe leather look. The model was oozing Gothic glamour as she wore a structured, floor-length black leather gown and chunky silver jewellery by brand Chrome Hearts. This year's Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche went for a Matrix-like leather look at the Trophee Chopard Dinner on Saturday. The French actress looked chic in the skin-tight off-shoulder dress with a front zip and thigh-high split. She wore latex-like boots under the dress and paired the rebellious look with a pair of black sunglasses. Other celebrities took a more subtle approach to 'fetish dressing'. At Sunday's The Phoenician premiere, Julianne Moore stunned in a simple Bottega Veneta dress with a risqué feature. The black sheath frock included one single strap made from strings of leather tied into a knot ,with its tassels not looking dissimilar to a whip. Gabbriette brought out her inner spy at the Mission Impossible premiere oozing Gothic glamour as she wore a structured, floor-length black leather gown and chunky silver jewellery The 'kinky' fashion fad comes after Cannes updated its dress code to ban 'nude dressing' just days before the festival was due to begin. According to organisers, the austere move is an attempt to stifle the celebrity trend for 'naked dresses' - namely provocative outfits that reveal considerably more than they conceal - on the red carpet. 'For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as any other area of the festival,' states a Cannes festival document. 'The festival welcoming teams will be obligated to prohibit red carpet access to anyone not respecting these rules.' The surprise new policy features in a recent festival-goers charter, released with a series of outlines regarding expected public behaviour. Guests are expected to converge on the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière for some of the highest profile film screenings across a packed seven-day schedule in Cannes. It's understood that the iconic venue now adopts a more conservative dress code, with suits, dinner jackets, and floor-length evening gowns generally favoured over headline-grabbing ensembles. Classic little black dresses, cocktail dresses, pant-suits, dressy tops and elegant sandals, 'with or without a heel', will also be permitted. While the decision to implement a more stringent policy will be a first, it is not known if French TV broadcasters, wary of airing nudity, played a role in its enforcement. Major red carpet events, including the Cannes Film Festival, are aired in France by France Télévisions. Recently attracting more models and influencers than actors and filmmakers, the annual ceremony has seen an increase in risque red carpet fashion statements.
CBC
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
A dystopian animated short featuring Jay Baruchel leads Canadian films at Cannes
Anxiety is the theme at this year's Cannes Film Festival. No, I'm not referring to the Doechii song (though I'm sure that'll be playing at all the afterparties); or the chatter around Trump's proposed 100 per cent tariff on international films; or programming like Ari Aster's Eddington, which taps into post pandemic divisiveness, and the final Mission: Impossible, where Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt wages war on an insidious AI. I'm talking about the Canadian films at Cannes this year, arriving on the Cote D'Azur like a dark cloud. There's Anne Émond's Peak Everything, about a man feeling emotionally crippled by the climate crisis. Its French title is Amour Apocalypse. Félix Dufour-Laperrière's animated feature Death Does Not Exist follows the tumultuous inner-life of a radical activist wrestling with existential decisions they must make to save society from where it's headed. In Martine Frossard's animated short Hypersensitive, a woman's fraught search for emotional healing sends her down a surreal rabbit hole that brings her closer to nature. And Bread Will Walk, Alex Boya's eerie and macabre animated short about two kids on a nightmarish journey, imagines the most fantastical take on what the world would be if we stay comfortable and complacent. The latter features Jay Baruchel, Canada's king of anxiety-riddled comedy, lending his vocals to the two children trying to hide from a world struck by a zombie-like plague caused by biochemically engineered food. People are mutating into bread. They're rounded up into concentration camps and fighting starvation by eating each other. It's a Hansel and Gretel meets Grapes of Wrath kind of story that taps into the same worry over industrial farming, mass production and commodification of our most bare necessities that Baruchel has grappled with in his apocalyptic documentary series We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel). "It dovetails with my cynical worldview perfectly," Baruchel says, of his collaboration with Boya. Both are on a Zoom call with CBC Arts to discuss representing Canada at Cannes with a film that Baruchel describes as "Brothers Grimm with a healthy dose of 21st century nihilism." We're a couple weeks out from the festival. Baruchel is calling in from his Toronto home, sporting a Montreal Canadians hoodie and cap, and bringing his boisterous and huggable energy to the conversation. Boya, is at his National Film Board (NFB) desk in Montreal, surrounded by film props and gadgets. Boya hoists up to his camera a creepy animatronic of the main character in Bread Will Walk and a massive, mutated melange of actual bread, which he experimented with when he considered making his film using stop-motion animation. "That's disgusting," Baruchel says. One of the reasons Boya abandoned the stop motion approach is because his attempts at filming an animatronic character turning into bread, by using a translucent oven and actual yeast, risked burning down the NFB. "There's all kinds of biohazardous iterations of the project," says Boya, with a mischievous grin. Boya is an experimenter. He tinkers with all the ways he can push technology for his art. As we're talking, he's got a prototype robotics arm strapped to his wrist, which he's using to study "muscle memory alongside temporality" for a project where robotics meets cognitive science and animation/art. He regularly drops head-spinning concepts into our conversation, which would be intimidating if he weren't so gentle and genuine about it all. "He is whatever the exact opposite of full of shit is," is Baruchel's take on Boya. Bread Will Walk is actually drawn from his graphic novel about a walking bread pandemic, The Mill, which Boya originally published — right before the pandemic had everyone stuck at home baking bread — in NFT form. He says he was exploring "database storytelling" and atomizing his story into a world-building project. When approaching Bread Will Walk, Boya even tried on the latest AI tools, to see if they could push the animation further. "I had an open mind with regards to a lot of these new technologies," he says. "But to do exactly what we were doing, it looked better when a human being does it. "You realize that the authorship of a human being speaking to another one, a lot of that happens in the invisible space between the frames," Boya continues, explaining the relationship to the screen and its audience. "That is really a communication between two people. Can I have two robots talk over a coffee? What's the point, right? You can have a coffee shop with two language models talking to each other and the coffee is going to get cold. There's something existentially innate about speaking as humans that is embedded in storytelling and embedded in filmmaking and animation." Keeping humanity at the centre also happens to be Bread Will Walking 's whole aesthetic. The film's evocative hand drawn animation, all bleeding earthy colours and sinewy lines, moves like one continuous shot, where it appears less like the characters are roaming through the world, and more like the environment is mutating around them. They remain the constant in a dehumanizing landscape. The other constant is Baruchel, who voices not only the two kids but all the other hostile characters who enter their orbit. It's a task that Baruchel admits stretched his vocal talents, even though he's really seasoned at this kind of gig. Long before Baruchal spent a decade behind the mic as Hiccup in the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, he was a voice actor in animation and French to English dubs. In fact, one of his earliest gigs was another NFB animated short called One Divided by Two: Kids and Divorce, a film about how triggering divorce can be, which itself was pretty triggering for Baruchel. "I was a 12-year-old kid whose parents' marriage was imploding before my eyes," he says. "[It] was more of a bummer than even this one." The stretch for Baruchel this time around was the singing during a crucial moment in Bread Will Walk, which he describes as both a scary and humbling proposition. "They were cool enough to say if you don't want to sing you don't have to," he says. "But of course, I am a narcissist and a whore, so I was like, 'of course.' … Everybody there was wonderful but good lord, did I ever feel like a guy stuck on a mountain." For Boya, Baruchel's struggle on that mountain, his anxiety during the process, becomes part of the text, and the humanity between the frames. It also reinforces his reasoning for having one actor voice everyone, as if the whole film was an expression of a singular inner monologue. "You're kind of in this limbic state," says Boya. "The character is almost talking to themselves and having all these characters within themselves." Boya then addresses Baruchel about his performance directly: "The tension of having you defy yourself, define yourself and then fight with yourself in this procedural, adversarial learning of carbon-based matter is quite special to see. And quite special to see documented."
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes, the global Colosseum of film, readies for 78th edition with new challenges on the horizon
Nowhere is the border-crossing nature of cinema more evident than the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off Tuesday in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to enact tariffs on international films. Cannes, where filmmakers, sales agents and journalists gather from around the world, is the Olympics of the big screen, with its own golden prize, the Palme d'Or, to give out at the end. Filmmakers come from nearly every corner of the globe to showcase their films while dealmakers work through the night to sell finished films or packaged productions to various territories. 'You release a film into that Colosseum-like situation,' says Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who's returning to Cannes with 'The Secret Agent,' a thriller set during Brazil's dictatorship. 'You've got to really prepare for the whole experience because it's quite intense — not very far from the feeling of approaching a roller coaster as you go up the steps at the Palais.' Perhaps as much as ever, all eyes in the movie world will be on the 78th Cannes Film Festival when it gets underway this week. That's not just because of the long list of anticipated films set to premiere at the Cote d'Azur festival (including films from Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster) and the extensive coterie of stars set to walk the fabled red carpet (Jennifer Lawrence, Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart among them). As the movies, and the Oscar race, have grown more international, the global launchpad of Cannes has become only more central to the larger film ecosystem — even with the ongoing absence of Netflix. Recent editions of Cannes have produced a string of Academy Awards contenders, including this year's best-picture winner, 'Anora.' At the same time, geopolitics course through Cannes unlike any other festival. The Cannes red carpet can be as much a platform for political protest as it is for glamour. This year's festival will include a dissident Iranian filmmaker (Jafar Panahi), a Ukrainian filmmaker (Sergei Loznitsa) and the first Nigerian production in the official selection (Akinola Davies Jr.'s 'My Father's Shadow'). The many roads to Cannes In the run-up to the festival, three filmmakers from different corners of the world spoke about their roads to the Cannes competition lineup. For many directors, reaching the Cannes competition — this year, that's 22 movies vying for the Palme d'Or — is career milestone. 'It's meaningful for me. It's meaningful for the country,' says Oliver Hermanus, speaking from outside Cape Town. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker of 'Moffie' and 'Living,' is in competition for the first time with 'The History of Sound,' a period love story starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. 'I was born here and made movies here for most of my career, so I still see myself as a South African filmmaker who's interested in the South African perspective on things and South African representation,' adds Hermanus. 'The competition is something I've always wanted to be part of.' Chie Hayakawa, the Japanese filmmaker of 2022's 'Plan 75,' is also in competition for the first time. She first came to Cannes with a student film that she never expected to make it into the festival's shorts program. This week, she'll debut 'Renoir,' a semiautobiographical tale about an 11-year-old girl with a father who has terminal cancer. 'It gives me a huge encouragement and keeps me motivated to making films,' Hayakawa said from Tokyo. 'I don't feel like I'm going to compete with other films. But it meaningful. I know how prestigious and meaningful it is to be in competition.' 'Film is global and easily crosses the borders of any country or culture,' she adds. 'That's what special about Cannes.' Will tariffs topple Cannes? Cannes' global approach is part of what makes this year more complicated than usual. Trump sent shock waves through Hollywood and the international film community when he announced on May 4 that all movies 'produced in Foreign Lands' will face 100% tariffs. The White House has said no final decisions have been made. Options being explored include federal incentives for U.S.-based productions, rather than tariffs. But the announcement was a reminder of how international tensions can destabilize even the oldest cultural institutions. Filho first attended Cannes as a critic. Once he began making movies, the allure of the festival remained. To him, participating in Cannes means joining a timeline of cinema history. 'The Secret Agent' marks his third time in competition. 'I have always felt that there was a seriousness that I appreciated,' Filho says. 'For example, I will be attending a 2 a.m. test for sound and picture. This is done with scientist types who will take care of the projection and how everything will go.' As to the threat of tariffs? He shrugs. 'I have been trained by Brazil, because we had a very strange and weird historic moment under (former president Jair) Bolsonaro,' Filho said. 'I used my training to say: This is probably some bad idea or misunderstanding that will be corrected in the coming days or weeks. Even for leaders like them, Bolsonaro and Trump, it makes no sense whatsoever.' 'Everything to lose, everything to gain' The Cannes Film Festival originally emerged in the World War II years, when the rise of fascism in Italy led to the founding of an alternative to the then-government controlled Venice Film Festival. In the time since, Cannes' resolute commitment to cinema has made it a beacon to filmmakers. Countless directors have come to make their name. This year is no different, though some of the first-time filmmakers at Cannes are already particularly well-known. Stewart ('The Chronology of Water'), Scarlett Johansson ('Eleanor the Great') and Harris Dickinson ('Urchin') will all be unveiling their feature directorial debuts in Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar section. Many Cannes veterans will be back, too, including Tom Cruise ('Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning'), Robert De Niro (who's to receive an honorary Palme d'Or 49 years after 'Taxi Driver' premiered in Cannes) and Quentin Tarantino (to pay tribute to low-budget Western director George Sherman). Hermanus first came to Cannes with his 2011 film 'Beauty.' He went naively optimistic before realizing, he laughs, that a Cannes selection is 'a potential invitation to a beheading. 'Even going now with 'The History of Sound,' I'm trying to be realistic about the fact that it's a gladiatorial arena. It's everything to lose and everything to gain,' says Hermanus. 'When Cannes selected us, it came down to me and Paul going, 'Oh God, here comes the real stress. Will we survive the intensity of Cannes?' — which we both agreed is the reason to go.' ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit Jake Coyle, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Independent
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Cannes, the global Colosseum of film, readies for 78th edition with new challenges on the horizon
Nowhere is the border-crossing nature of cinema more evident than the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off Tuesday in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to enact tariffs on international films. Cannes, where filmmakers, sales agents and journalists gather from around the world, is the Olympics of the big screen, with its own golden prize, the Palme d'Or, to give out at the end. Filmmakers come from nearly every corner of the globe to showcase their films while dealmakers work through the night to sell finished films or packaged productions to various territories. 'You release a film into that Colosseum-like situation,' says Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who's returning to Cannes with 'The Secret Agent,' a thriller set during Brazil's dictatorship. 'You've got to really prepare for the whole experience because it's quite intense — not very far from the feeling of approaching a roller coaster as you go up the steps at the Palais.' Perhaps as much as ever, all eyes in the movie world will be on the 78th Cannes Film Festival when it gets underway this week. That's not just because of the long list of anticipated films set to premiere at the Cote d'Azur festival (including films from Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster) and the extensive coterie of stars set to walk the fabled red carpet (Jennifer Lawrence, Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart among them). As the movies, and the Oscar race, have grown more international, the global launchpad of Cannes has become only more central to the larger film ecosystem — even with the ongoing absence of Netflix. Recent editions of Cannes have produced a string of Academy Awards contenders, including this year's best-picture winner, 'Anora.' At the same time, geopolitics course through Cannes unlike any other festival. The Cannes red carpet can be as much a platform for political protest as it is for glamour. This year's festival will include a dissident Iranian filmmaker (Jafar Panahi), a Ukrainian filmmaker (Sergei Loznitsa) and the first Nigerian production in the official selection (Akinola Davies Jr.'s 'My Father's Shadow'). The many roads to Cannes In the run-up to the festival, three filmmakers from different corners of the world spoke about their roads to the Cannes competition lineup. For many directors, reaching the Cannes competition — this year, that's 22 movies vying for the Palme d'Or — is career milestone. 'It's meaningful for me. It's meaningful for the country,' says Oliver Hermanus, speaking from outside Cape Town. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker of 'Moffie' and 'Living,' is in competition for the first time with 'The History of Sound,' a period love story starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. 'I was born here and made movies here for most of my career, so I still see myself as a South African filmmaker who's interested in the South African perspective on things and South African representation,' adds Hermanus. 'The competition is something I've always wanted to be part of.' Chie Hayakawa, the Japanese filmmaker of 2022's 'Plan 75,' is also in competition for the first time. She first came to Cannes with a student film that she never expected to make it into the festival's shorts program. This week, she'll debut 'Renoir,' a semiautobiographical tale about an 11-year-old girl with a father who has terminal cancer. 'It gives me a huge encouragement and keeps me motivated to making films,' Hayakawa said from Tokyo. 'I don't feel like I'm going to compete with other films. But it meaningful. I know how prestigious and meaningful it is to be in competition.' 'Film is global and easily crosses the borders of any country or culture,' she adds. 'That's what special about Cannes.' Will tariffs topple Cannes? Cannes' global approach is part of what makes this year more complicated than usual. Trump sent shock waves through Hollywood and the international film community when he announced on May 4 that all movies 'produced in Foreign Lands' will face 100% tariffs. The White House has said no final decisions have been made. Options being explored include federal incentives for U.S.-based productions, rather than tariffs. But the announcement was a reminder of how international tensions can destabilize even the oldest cultural institutions. Filho first attended Cannes as a critic. Once he began making movies, the allure of the festival remained. To him, participating in Cannes means joining a timeline of cinema history. 'The Secret Agent' marks his third time in competition. 'I have always felt that there was a seriousness that I appreciated,' Filho says. 'For example, I will be attending a 2 a.m. test for sound and picture. This is done with scientist types who will take care of the projection and how everything will go.' As to the threat of tariffs? He shrugs. 'I have been trained by Brazil, because we had a very strange and weird historic moment under (former president Jair) Bolsonaro,' Filho said. 'I used my training to say: This is probably some bad idea or misunderstanding that will be corrected in the coming days or weeks. Even for leaders like them, Bolsonaro and Trump, it makes no sense whatsoever.' 'Everything to lose, everything to gain' The Cannes Film Festival originally emerged in the World War II years, when the rise of fascism in Italy led to the founding of an alternative to the then-government controlled Venice Film Festival. In the time since, Cannes' resolute commitment to cinema has made it a beacon to filmmakers. Countless directors have come to make their name. This year is no different, though some of the first-time filmmakers at Cannes are already particularly well-known. Stewart ('The Chronology of Water'), Scarlett Johansson ('Eleanor the Great') and Harris Dickinson ('Urchin') will all be unveiling their feature directorial debuts in Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar section. Many Cannes veterans will be back, too, including Tom Cruise ('Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning'), Robert De Niro (who's to receive an honorary Palme d'Or 49 years after 'Taxi Driver' premiered in Cannes) and Quentin Tarantino (to pay tribute to low-budget Western director George Sherman). Hermanus first came to Cannes with his 2011 film 'Beauty.' He went naively optimistic before realizing, he laughs, that a Cannes selection is 'a potential invitation to a beheading. 'Even going now with 'The History of Sound,' I'm trying to be realistic about the fact that it's a gladiatorial arena. It's everything to lose and everything to gain,' says Hermanus. 'When Cannes selected us, it came down to me and Paul going, 'Oh God, here comes the real stress. Will we survive the intensity of Cannes?' — which we both agreed is the reason to go.' ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit
