Cannes, 5/23.

"[O]n behalf of my own one-man jury, with scant compensation for the winners and in scandalous unfairness to those few movies yet to screen, I bestow the following awards," announces J Hoberman in the Voice. First up: "Le Gran Surprise du Festival to Che." Five more follow.

"Cannes is perhaps not the worst of places to reiterate one of the clear signs of our time: there is no more hierarchy in the cinema," declares Emmanuel Burdeau in his latest Cahiers du cinéma diary entry.

Meanwhile, the London Times' James Christopher and Wendy Ide write up a Cannes Top Ten. So far.

Turns out, Mark Peranson and Christoph Huber have been blogging all this while from Cannes at La lectora provisoria. Via Movie City News.

"Each year at some point here in Cannes, the question arises: is this festival all it's cracked up to be? Is Cannes what it was? Typically, the subject crops up about a week into the festival, as fatigue starts to set in," writes the Telegraph's David Gritten. "Yet I'd bet that nearly everyone here this year will return in 12 months' time. Everyone I talked to about the state of Cannes agreed: in its way, it's irreplaceable."

"Madonna the documentary-maker came, saw and conquered the world's biggest film festival yesterday with a powerful polemic on the effects of disease and poverty on Malawi [I Am Because We Are]," reports Mark Brown. "Next in her sights is the Israel-Palestine conflict."

"The Cannes Film Festival is looking back, sorting it all out, being realistic," writes William Booth in the Washington Post. This isn't about young, brash, new. This is the year of longing, of the nostalgia trip."

Posted by dwhudson at May 23, 2008 4:03 PM