Wednesday 21 February 2007

33 x 3 mins cinema at Cannes

To celebrate the 60th Cannes Film Festival 33 directors have been commissioned to create a 3-minute film each.

Hailing from 5 continents and 25 different countries, these 33 directors will reveal, in 3 minutes each, their current state of mind as inspired by the motion-picture theatre - a second restriction but also, of course, a promise of Paradise! A family stroll back through memories, dreams, bursts of laughter, cries of alarm and emotion. The novelty of the form derives from its extreme division and the pleasant sweetness of its lightness.
The overall title of the work is To Each His Cinema.

The masculine pronoun is almost correct, since only one of the directors is a women. Here's the full list: Theo Angelopoulos, Olivier Assayas, Bille August, Jane Campion, Youssef Chahine, Chen Kaige, Michael Cimino, Ethan & Joel Coen, David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Manoel De Oliveira, Raymond Depardon, Atom Egoyan, Amos Gitai, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, Aki Kaurismaki, Abbas Kiarostami, Takeshi Kitano, Andrei Konchalovsky, Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Nanni Moretti, Roman Polanski, Raoul Ruiz, Walter Salles, Elia Suleiman, Tsai Ming Liang, Gus Van Sant, Lars Von Trier, Wim Wenders, Wong Kar Wai and Zhang Yimou.

Alas, not an Irish director among them.

To Each His Cinema will be shown on May 30th during the Festival, and on the French television channel, Canal+.

4 comments:

Erica said...

Who besides Campion is a woman?

Maura McHugh said...

Yes, you're right, Campion is the lone female director. When I had glanced over the group I had thought I'd noticed another woman among the crowd.

Of course, there are many fine male directors who are not included in the list, but it's sad to say that out of an international field of 33 directors, Cannes could only select one woman.

I adjusted the piece to reflect this fact.

Erica said...

Thanks - I was feeling a little bitter about it myself. I actually IMDB'd all the directors to be sure. At least they hit the multicultural aspect fully.

Maura McHugh said...

The problem is that there's no way to satisfy every criteria when you select for such a project. I'm impressed with the multi-cultural aspect, but I'm perplexed that only one woman made the cut.