The official selection of the Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled.
The line-up was revealed by the festival’s president Pierre Lescure, and general delegate Thierry Fremaux, during a press conference at the Normandie Cinema in Paris’s Champs-Elysees.
A healthy mix of international and Hollywood films are planned for the festival's grand comeback after a year affected by the pandemic. The 2021 iteration has been delayed from the usual May date to July 6 to 17.
Da 5 Bloods filmmaker Spike Lee, who was scheduled to be head of the jury in 2020, is taking up the mantle of jury president.
The musical Annette will open the festival and is among the films in the Competition. The film is directed by French filmmaker Leos Carax and stars Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver.
Regional picks in the competition include Casablanca Beats by French-Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch and A Hero by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. Catherine Corsini's La Fracture, Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi are also in the Competition list.
The Un Certain Regard selection, Fremaux said during the press conference, has returned to its original intention of recognising young talent and experimental cinema. At least six of the 12 films in the selection are debut features.
These include La Civil by Teodora Ana Mihai, a film about a mother whose teenage daughter is kidnapped in Northern Mexico; Un Monde by Laura Wandel, which contrasts a schoolgirl's attempts to fit in a new school with her desire to stand up for her bullied brother; and Moneyboys by C B Yi, a drama that follows a hustler in China at odds with his family, who accept his money but not his lifestyle.
There's also Noche de Fuego by Tatiana Huezo, which explores a town at war, and Lamb by Valdimar Johannsson, a supernatural drama about a couple who discovers a mysterious newborn on their farm in Iceland.
Actress Gessica Geneus will also debut her first fiction feature with Freda.
In a 2020 interview with Woy Magazine, Geneus said the film "is a portrait of a woman, of a family, in the context of the current sociopolitical crisis in Haiti".
The Cannes Premiere also has several intriguing titles in this year's selection. Documentary Cow by Andrea Arnold, offers a detailed study of the daily lives of two cows.
Another highlight is Love Song for Tough Guys by Samuel Benchetrit. The film follows the lives of a group of social outcasts, who, though used to violence, are influenced by the strong love they feel for one another.
Eva Husson's post-First World War drama Mothering Sunday is also scheduled to premiere, as will Hong Sang-soo's newest feature In Front of Your Face.
Cannes Film Festival 2021 official selection
Competition
Annette, Leos Carax (festival opening film)
Tre Piani, Nanni Moretti
Tout s'est bien passe, Francois Ozon
Un Heros (A Hero), Asghar Farhadi
Titane, Julia Ducournau
The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson
Red Rocket, Sean Baker
Petrov's Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov
Par un demi-clair matin, Bruno Dumont
Nitram, Justin Kurzel
Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Lingui, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Les Olympiades (Paris 13th District), Jacques Audiard
Les Intranquilles (The Restless), Joachim Lafosse
La Fracture, Catherine Corsini
Casablanca Beats, Nabil Ayouch
Julie (En 12 Chapitres) (The Worst Person In The World), Joachim Trier
Hytti nro 6 (Compartment No 6), Juho Kuosmanen
Ha'berech (Le Genou d'Ahed / Ahed's Knee), Nadav Lapid
Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Bergman Island, Mia Hansen-Love
Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven
A Feleségem Története (The Story of My Wife), Ildikó Enyedi
Flag Day, Sean Penn
Out Of Competition
Aline (Aline, The Voice Of Love), Valerie Lemercier
Stillwater, Tom McCarthy
The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes
Emergency Declaration, Han Jae-rim
De son vivant, Emmanuelle Bercot
Bac Nord, Cedric Jimenez
Babi Yar, Sergei Loznitsa
Midnight Screening
Oranges Sanguines (Bloody Oranges), Jean-Christophe Meurisse
Cannes Premiere
Cette Musique Ne Joue Pour Personne (Love Song For Tough Guys), Samuel Benchetrit
Cow, Andrea Arnold
Tromperie (Deception), Arnaud Desplechin
Evolution, Kornel Mundruczo
In Front Of Your Face, Hong Sang-soo
Serre-moi fort (Hold Me Tight), Mathieu Amalric
Mothering Sunday, Eva Husson
Special Screenings
H6, Ye Ye
Cahiers Noirs (Black Notebooks), Shlomi Elkabetz
O Marinheiro Das Montanhas (Le Marin Des Montagnes / Mariner Of The Mountains), Karim Ainouz
JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass, Oliver Stone
Jane par Charlotte, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Un Certain Regard
The Innocents, Eskil Vogt
After Yang, Kogonada
Lamb, Valdimar Johannsson
Noche de Fuego, Tatiana Huezo
Bonne Mere, Hafsia Herzi
Blue Bayou, Justin Chon
Moneyboys, C.B Yi
Freda, Gessica Geneus
Un Monde, Laura Wandel
Commitment Hasan, Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu
House Arrest, Alexey German Jr
Ad Astra
Director: James Gray
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones
Five out of five stars
Breast cancer in men: the facts
1) Breast cancer is men is rare but can develop rapidly. It usually occurs in those over the ages of 60, but can occasionally affect younger men.
2) Symptoms can include a lump, discharge, swollen glands or a rash.
3) People with a history of cancer in the family can be more susceptible.
4) Treatments include surgery and chemotherapy but early diagnosis is the key.
5) Anyone concerned is urged to contact their doctor
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
BRAZIL%20SQUAD
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Cinco in numbers
Dh3.7 million
The estimated cost of Victoria Swarovski’s gem-encrusted Michael Cinco wedding gown
46
The number, in kilograms, that Swarovski’s wedding gown weighed.
1,000
The hours it took to create Cinco’s vermillion petal gown, as seen in his atelier [note, is the one he’s playing with in the corner of a room]
50
How many looks Cinco has created in a new collection to celebrate Ballet Philippines’ 50th birthday
3,000
The hours needed to create the butterfly gown worn by Aishwarya Rai to the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
1.1 million
The number of followers that Michael Cinco’s Instagram account has garnered.
NATIONAL%20SELECTIONS
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Martin Sabbagh profile
Job: CEO JCDecaux Middle East
In the role: Since January 2015
Lives: In the UAE
Background: M&A, investment banking
Studied: Corporate finance
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Brief scores:
Toss: India, opted to field
Australia 158-4 (17 ov)
Maxwell 46, Lynn 37; Kuldeep 2-24
India 169-7 (17 ov)
Dhawan 76, Karthik 30; Zampa 2-22
Result: Australia won by 4 runs by D/L method
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
Women’s World T20, Asia Qualifier
UAE results
Beat China by 16 runs
Lost to Thailand by 10 wickets
Beat Nepal by five runs
Beat Hong Kong by eight wickets
Beat Malaysia by 34 runs
Standings (P, W, l, NR, points)
1. Thailand 5 4 0 1 9
2. UAE 5 4 1 0 8
3. Nepal 5 2 1 2 6
4. Hong Kong 5 2 2 1 5
5. Malaysia 5 1 4 0 2
6. China 5 0 5 0 0
Final
Thailand v UAE, Monday, 7am
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