Critics’ Week, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival discovering new talents, This Wednesday, she opens a new phase as delegate general with Ava Cahen, the second woman to hold the position in the 61 edition and the youngest to hold it.
The 36-year-old Parisian Cahen took over from Charles Tesson (2012-2021). five years selectively on the feature film committee. He takes command of a house he knows well, which serves as a springboard for the greats in the industry such as British Ken Loach or Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu.
“I understand their mission and values and it was important for me to make them my own. The approach is both the same and very different because it is mine”He tells Efe, who is also the film critic and founder of CLAP magazines in 2014 and FrenchMania in 2017.
Critics’ Week is showing the first or second films and this year’s feature film competition. It will close on May 26 It consists of only the first works of Colombian Andrés Gómez Pulido, including ‘La pack’.
“I think it is very important for young writers to be there and to act as a bridge between their work, the public and the cinema.”He explains Cahen in a print where they took 1100 pitches and only kept 1%.
The pandemic has caused fears that there will be fewer offers, but both their volume and quality point out that they are up to the task: “The cinema itself, the creative side, the imagination are doing well. There are very suitable regions like Colombia and Iran.”
Five of the films were signed by women, seven in the competition and four in the special sessions. a figure close to an unusual balance at other competitions or at Cannes.
“We’re very lucky because the first and second films are pretty magical plots.. The directors are very active and their work is of impressive quality, so we don’t have to think about quotas.. It’s totally natural because we love his movies,” she says.
new weather
His own appointment is part of the change. Only one other woman per week, Claire Clouzot (2002-2004), was in charge and From July, Cannes will have German Iris Knobloch as its first president, who will replace Pierre Lescure.
Being chosen for Cahen “Brave” by the Board of the French Film Critics Syndicate, This spurred the creation of the Week, but also a natural evolution in his professional career.
“To say that a young woman is fully entitled sends a good message. Directing an election like one of the week, He emphasizes that “it’s not just any choice”, as a movie buff, his new representative stepped onto the Cannes red carpet for the first time in 2008 with his out-of-competition screening ‘Kung Fu Panda’.
Cahen, TV and Woody Allen expert, seemed predestined for a film-related career: her parents named her Ava For her admiration for American actress Ava Gardner.
in this The new page in your resume says be guided by generosity, section hosts names that have not yet been mentioned in the sector.
“Our mission is to foster this talent, allow it to exist and Put the focus where it needs to be. We don’t just choose movies. “After Cannes, I got the impression that we were part of the artists’ life,” he says.
Among this year’s artists is British Charlotte Wells. made his feature-length directorial debut with ‘Aftersun’.starring Paul Mescal or in the short films section Chilean Diego Céspedes (“Creatures melting under the sun”) and Spanish Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren (“Strings”) and Anna Fernández de Paco (“Nisam je stigao voljeti”).
The variety, in her opinion, is the offer that helps open the festivals to other audiences: “The quality of a festival like Cannes, or our Mission in the Week, is to make any kind of cinema exist so as not to give the impression of a somewhat sleepy or gray auteur cinema,” he concludes.
Source: Informacion
