Cannes Film Fest Creates Honorary Palme d’Or: Bertolucci First Recipient

Before the official competition for the 64th edition of the Festival de Cannes is announced this week, the organizers announced a “new” change embracing the “old”. In what will become an annual tradition, the inaugural of the Honorary Palme d’Or will begin with legendary Italian writer and director Bernardo Bertolucci. Even though the master presented some of his minor work (Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man & Stealing Beauty) at the festival, his masterpieces surprisingly slipped through the festival’s fingers — something in which the festival realized and made up for it with this overdue, well-timed honor. Bertolucci is one of the most influential filmmakers in the world whose films influenced countless filmmakers around the world especially with his works in the 70’s and 80’s. Among his masterpieces are The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and 1900 which starred this year’s president Robert DeNiro and French legend Gérard Depardieu amongst many others. 

The festival which remains the world’s ultimate festival continues to reinvent itself as it tries to adapt to the ever changing world of cinema. Besides “honoring” Robert DeNiro with the role of jury president (the winner of his jury should sure as an interesting topical discussion for the entire 10 days), they’ve picked some younger helmers with the same responsibilities. Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho will preside over the Camera d’Or, while Michel Gondry will preside over the Short film & Cinefondation juries respectively. Emir Kusturica heads the jury duty for Un Certain Regard.

The stage is set for announcement of the Official Competition and Un Certain Regard selections to be followed by the line up of Directors’ Fortnight and Critic’s Week the following week.