Cannes Day 3 May 17, 2008

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Cannes Film Festival is famed for bringing hard hitting movies to a wider audience with such a film last year 4month, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a Romanian picture about illegal abortion.

And after the hype of Kung Fu Panda has ebbed away this year is no different as Friday featured two pictures that may hit a raw nerve with Cannes cinema go-ers.

First up Sean Penn used his position as head of the Film Festival jury to back new documentary The Third Wave.

With the likes of Natalie Portman and controversial filmmaker Michael Moore at it’s premiere on Friday The Third Wave, directed by Alison Thompson is a low budget documentary filmed by those who went to volunteer in Sri Lanka in 2004 after the tsunami.

The film focuses on three volunteers who, without the aid of the government, began the clean-up operation by looking for bodies and setting up their own infirmary.

The second film to shake up the Cannes audience was Ari Folman’s animation Waltz With Bashir.

   

This Israeli picture depicts the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.

The film’s main character is director Ari Folman himself who realises that there are major parts of his life, his experience as an Israeli soldier during the Lebanon war of the eighties, missing from his memory.

Ari decides to meet up with old friends and comrades to discover the truth about this time and about himself.

Folman unflinchingly depicts what young men do in a time of war and the atrocities of which humans are capable as well as pointing the finger at those he deems responsible.

Despite not having American distribution when premiered Waltz With Bashir is in the running for the Palme d’or.

Cannes Day 2 May 16, 2008

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Cannes Film Festival: Day 2

Alongside Brad Pitt the actress was in town to promote her animation movie Kung Fu Panda, which got it’s premiere last night.

But all the talk was about the revelation that Jolie is to give birth to twins after Jack Black let it slip during an interview to promote the movie.

The actress was forced to reveal that she and partner Pitt will become parents for the fifth and sixth time on 19th August, she did keep the sex of the unborn twins a secret.

She was joined on the red carpet by co-star and funny man Jack Black, who arrived at the festival the day before surrounded by forty people in giant panda suits.

“Kung Fu Panda” features Jack Black as Po the Panda, a lowly waiter in a noodle restaurant, who is a kung fu fanatic but whose shape doesn’t exactly lend itself to kung fu fighting.

In fact, Po’s defining characteristic appears to be that he is the laziest of all the animals in ancient China.

That’s a problem because powerful enemies are at the gates, and all hopes have been pinned on a prophesy naming Po as the “Chosen One” to save the day

A group of martial arts masters are going to need a black belt in patience if they are going to turn this slacker panda into a kung fu fighter before it’s too late.

Dustin Hoffman will voice the role of Shifu, the by-the-book and tough-as-nails Kung Fu master, who has been given the unenviable task of turning the undisciplined Po into a kung fu fighter.

Jackie Chan will lend his voice to Master Monkey, a strong, agile and dedicated kung fu warrior, who serves as a daily reminder to Po of everything he is not … yet.

Ian McShane (Deadwood) will be the voice of the villainous Tai Lung, a ferociously powerful snow leopard, who breaks out of prison, intent on using his kung fu skills to destroy the Valley of Peace

Kung Fu Panda is the last est Dreamworks animation project and it is hoped that it will emulate the success of the previous Shrek movies.

The film was well received by critics at the press screening of the film when it earned a standing ovation.

This is the first of two movies for Angelina Jolie as she will also star in Clint Eastwood’s new picture Changeling, which is competing for the Palme d’Or.

Day 2 at Cannes – With the official screening of A Christmas Carol And a Crystal Diamond Surprise party hosted by Chopard, Cannes has started with a bang. We find Lisa Voice mingling at the GQ party at the 3-acre Mint Villa with some of the Cannes entrepreneurs…..

Lisa voice with Lord Brian Kelly (MTV Presenter)

Cannes Day 1 May 16, 2008

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-DreamWorks Animation kicked off the 61st annual Cannes Film Festival today with an outbreak of “Pandamonium,” as Jack Black, star of DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming June 6th release “Kung Fu Panda,” arrived at the Carlton Hotel pier in style…emerging from a water taxi to be greeted on the pier by nearly 40 true-to-size Po-s, his on-screen persona and hero of the film’s title.

Black and the other “kung fu pandas” posed for a barrage of photojournalists and camera crews, signaling that the celebrity- and film-fueled glitter of the 2008 Festival had officially begun.

Black’s arrival at the Carlton will serve as merely the beginning of the “Kung Fu Panda”-monium set to sweep Cannes, as the DreamWorks Animation release is slated for its worldwide premiere, screening out of competition tomorrow night, May 15th, at 7:30pm at the nexus of the Festival, the Palais.

The pre-screening red carpet arrivals will spotlight Black and some of his “Kung Fu Panda” co-stars Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu along with KFP filmmakers directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, producer Melissa Cobb, and screenwriters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger and DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, who will be joined by friends and some of the biggest celebrities in attendance at this year’s Fest.

Enthusiastic, big and a little clumsy, Po (Golden Globe nominee Jack Black) is the biggest fan of kung fu around…which doesn’t exactly come in handy while working every day in his family’s noodle shop. When he’s unexpectedly chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy, Po’s dreams become reality and he joins the world of kung fu to study alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five: Tigress (Academy Award® winner Angelina Jolie); Crane (Emmy winner David Cross); Mantis (Emmy nominee Seth Rogen); Viper (Emmy/SAG nominee Lucy Liu); and Monkey (international superstar Jackie Chan) under the leadership of their guru, Master Shifu (two-time Oscar® winner Dustin Hoffman). But before they know it, the vengeful and treacherous snow leopard Tai Lung (Emmy/Golden Globe winner Ian McShane) is headed their way, and it’s up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat. Can he turn his dreams of becoming a kung fu master into reality? Po puts his heart into the task, and the unlikely hero ultimately finds that his greatest weaknesses turn out to be his greatest strengths.

Kicking off the film festival is Blindness by Fernando Meirelles, Brazilian director who brought us City of God, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Sandra Oh.

Gael Garcia Bernal, Danny Glover and Julianne Moore were all on the red carpet for the screening of the film and were joined by Cate Blanchett and Sean Penn.

However the talk of the evening was Jack Black let slip that his Kung Fu panda co-star Angelina Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt were expecting twins.

 The lovely Vicki Michelle staying at the prestigious Hotel Du Cap here in Cannes for the 2008 film festival, pictured here with music producer Lisa Voice.

Vicki has recently been seen in Emmerdale and is soon to start rehearsals for the national tour of Allo Allo stage play.

The stage play was promoted by the enormous response last year and producers decided to take the cast on a national tour. She is now in Cannes to discuss a future movie venture – watch this space!