The legend of French cinema “declared open” the Cannes Film Festival by reciting the lines of a poem by the Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka.
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival was officially declared open on Tuesday evening by Catherine Deneuve, during a ceremony presented by her daughter, actress Chiara Mastroianni.
“I declare the 76th Cannes Film Festival open,” said one of the legends of French cinema, alongside American actor Michael Douglas, who said the same sentence in English, a few minutes after receiving a Palme d gold of honor.
Catherine Deneuve, whose portrait serves as a poster for the Festival this year, had previously said that she “thinks a lot about Ukraine” and recited a poem by Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka.
“I no longer have either happiness or freedom, Only one hope remains to me: To return one day to my beautiful Ukraine. To see my distant land once again, To contemplate the blue Dnieper again. To live or die there matters little. To see again once the mounds, the plains, and burning old thoughts in the fire… I no longer have either happiness or freedom, only one hope remained to me”, declared Catherine Deneuve, before being applauded by the public .
The competition starts this Wednesday
Last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had, to everyone’s surprise, spoken at the opening ceremony of the Festival, a few weeks after the start of the Russian invasion of his country.
Jeanne du Barry by French director Maïwenn, with Johnny Depp playing King Louis XV, was then screened as the opening film.
The competition starts this Wednesday with two feature films, Monster by the Japanese Hirokazu Kore-Eda and “Le Retour” by the French Catherine Corsini.
In total, 21 filmmakers are in the running for the Palme d’Or, including 7 women, a record level for the largest film festival in the world. They will be decided by a jury of nine members chaired by Ruben Östlund, winner of his second Palme in 2022 for Without filter.
