‘The Beloved,’ with Catherine Deneuve, will close the Cannes Film Festival
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The Cannes Film Festival has announced that ‘Les Bien-Aimes’ (‘The Beloved’), a French-language romantic comedy set across Europe in different parts of the 20th century, will be the closing-night movie.
Catherine Deneuve stars in the movie, which is directed by Cannes veteran Christophe Honore (he came in 2007 with ‘Love Songs’) and features a rare acting appearance by Milos Forman. The Czech auteur was most recently, and perhaps most famously, seen by American audiences a decade ago in the religious comedy ‘Keeping the Faith,’ in which he played a clergyman.
‘Beloved’ is set in Paris, Prague and London, making for a neat bookend with the Paris-set opening film, Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris.’
The closing-night film is not typically one of the high-profile slots at Cannes -- last year’s premiere, for instance, was Charlotte Gainsbourgh’s relatively little-known ‘The Tree’ -- with most eyes trained that weekend on the festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or and other prizes.
Still, the ‘Beloved’ news means there will be a Cannes return for Deneuve, a veteran of the festival who has brought numerous movies to the Croisette; she also served as a vice president of the jury in 1994 and received a special jury prize for her body of work in 2008.
Festival organizers on Thursday also announced that they will pay tribute to Egyptian cinema with a one-day screening of 10 short films centered on the country’s recent revolution. The festival, which runs May 11- 22, plans on honoring a specific country each year, beginning with the feting of Egypt.
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-- Steven Zeitchik
Twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT
