A few minutes earlier, Vincent Delerm, in a thin voice, sang
That I love you
and the most languorous kisses of the 7th art passed on the screen.
The organizers of the opening ceremony of this 75th Cannes Film Festival, hosted by Virginie Efira, have definitely mastered the art of transition.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the closed face that we now know him, appeared from kyiv on the screen of the Grand Théâtre Lumière, as he had done in April during the Grammy Awards.
And as it had been envisaged, and demanded by Sean Penn, during the last edition of the Oscars.
This Tuesday evening, the former acrobat who became a warlord thus sought, for ten minutes, to mobilize the world of cinema gathered in Cannes.
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Volodymyr Zelensky quickly mentioned the Boutcha massacre.
Hell, he says, is sweeter than war.
He then recalls that the theater of Mariupol, where several hundred civilians lost their lives, is not so different from that in which the opening ceremony is taking place... He insists on the desire for chaos which is that of Vladimir Poutine.
Before summoning the 7th art to support his words.
Thus he quotes the character embodied by Robert Duvall in
Apocalypse Now
and his line on the smell of napalm in the early morning.
Above all,
“we need a new Chaplin who will prove that the cinema is not dumb
,” thunders the Ukrainian president.
Hate will eventually disappear, dictators will die.
We will continue to fight, we have no other choice (...) I am convinced that the dictator will lose”.
The former actor references Russian President Vladimir Putin and Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece.
“Will the cinema shut up or talk about it?”
, he asks finally, decided to challenge actors, directors and producers.
Loud applause in the room.
The dissident Serebrennikov
This year in Cannes, two Ukrainian filmmakers will be present.
Sergei Loznitsa for
The Natural History of Destruction
, on the destruction of German cities by the Allies during the Second World War, but also the young Maksim Nakonechnyi for
Bachennya Metelyka
, in the selection in Un certain regard.
The Festival added at the last minute the presentation of
Mariupolis 2
, the latest film by Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, killed in early April in Ukraine.
The world cinema meeting also refused to welcome Russian official representatives, government authorities or journalists representing the official Russian line.
A voice of dissent, on the other hand, will be present: the filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, who had never been able, for political reasons, to go to Cannes.
The terrible child of the Russian scene will open the competition on Wednesday with his new film
Tchaikovsky's wife
, in the running for the Palme d'or.