The 68th Annual Cannes International Film Festiva, better known as Le Festival International du Film de Cannes or just Festival de Cannes, is underway and it’s been an interesting showcase. Matthew McConaughey’s new drama, The Sea of Trees by Gus Van Sant, was met with a chorus of boos. During the press conference the Oscar-winning actor shared, “Anyone has any right to either boo or ovate.”
McConaughey’s character travels to Japan to enter the Aokigahara forest, suicide forest, after his wife’s (Naomi Watts) death.
Woody Allen’s Irrational Man received a lukewarm reception. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as a philosophy professor who gets a new lease on life while planning and executing a perfect murder.
It doesn’t look like either of these will receive the Palme d’Or. But on the other hand, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Umimachi Diary, which tells the story of three sisters living in the old seaside city of Kamakura travel to the funeral of their estranged father and invite their younger half-sister to live with them, is getting rave reviews. And, Cannes 2015 opened with La Tête Haute which has been dubbed as “passionately well made,” by the London Evening Standard. French for “Standing Tall,” the French comedy-drama about a troubled teen’s journey to adulthood, by French director Emmanuelle Bercot, and stars iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve.
