His first stair climb was as a moviegoer for
Kung Fu Panda
.
Fourteen years later, Ava Cahen presents her first Critics' Week selection, one of the most cutting-edge parallel sections at the Cannes Film Festival.
To discover
Discover the “Best of the Goncourt Prize” collection
The first film by actor Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg in
The Social Network
), a dark and mystical dive into Barbès, unclassifiable films from Tehran, Colombia or the United Kingdom... The list of eleven films that will be projected for the 61st edition, from May 18 to 26 at the modest Espace Miramar, one kilometer from the red carpet of the imposing Palais des Festivals, was unveiled on Wednesday.
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Truman Show
They are faithful to the spirit of clearing the ground for this section, which is making a new start in a crowded niche: the Directors' Fortnight, which is looking for a successor to its boss, the quadra Paolo Moretti, is also programming many first feature films, and on the Festival side, General Delegate Thierry Frémaux is refocusing the Un Certain Regard selection on young talent.
At 35, Ava Cahen, a specialist in particular of Woody Allen and series, including
Game of Thrones
, takes the helm of an institution that intends to continue to discover talents, from Ken Loach, Guillermo Del Toro or Wong Kar-wai to the century last, to the ultra-contemporary cinema of Julia Ducournau, who came to La Semaine with
Grave
in 2016, and crowned last year with the palme d'or for her second film,
Titane
.
The youngest coach in the history of this section succeeds sixty-year-old Charles Tesson, who held the helm for ten years, and whom she wants to
"pursue the same ambition"
, which involves a permanent x-ray of the young creation.
Read alsoThierry Frémaux: “I hope there will be fewer films at Cannes in 2022”
Unearth nuggets
This year, the selectors watched 1,100 feature films, to retain... only 1%!
"You have to be very close to the ground when you are a picker of young talents"
, sums up Ava Cahen, who scours with her workshop teams around the world and script reading commissions to unearth nuggets.
The selection was designed
"as an invitation to travel, to daydream, to the imagination"
, she summarizes.
Read alsoCannes: Critics' Week rejuvenates and feminizes its direction with Ava Cahen
In a world of cinema that is struggling to leave all its place to women, his appointment is one more signal, the landscape of festivals remaining dominated by men, from the boss of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, 72, to the artistic director from the Berlinale, Carlo Chatrian, 50, to José Luis Rebordinos (61) in San Sebastian.
The new general delegate has entrusted the presidency of the jury to the Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, a young talent both political and dreamlike, noticed with
La Belle et la meute
(2017), on sexual violence, and
The Man who sold his skin
(2020), about immigration.
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But
"we must not intellectualize things too much
," says Ava Cahen, who owes her first name to her parents
' "eternal love"
for Hollywood actress Ava Gardner:
"Cinema, we live it, we feel it, it passes through our skin and our body”
.
Raised in a family of movie-loving lawyers, Ava Cahen saw
Alien
on VHS when she was three and
Pulp Fiction
when she was 10.
She will make criticism her profession.
She is now one of the pillars of Le
Cercle
, the Canal+ cinema program, of
One hour in series
on France Inter and launched
FrenchMania
,
a magazine on French cinema.
In the age of social networks and streaming at all costs, the profession of criticism, born with the dark rooms, has a future ahead of it, she defends:
“It is a fundamental work of speaking out against towards the younger generation of authors.
The critic must move the spectator, engage him to go to the cinema.
This is also the whole mission of Critics' Week
.