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Cannes, we have a problem: Olivier Dahan and Nicole Kidman in pensive moods on the set of Grace of Monaco, the Cannes Film Festival's controversial opening choice
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The controversy surrounding the opening film at this year's Cannes Film Festival a week today (May 14) continues with the decision by Prince Albert 11 and his sisters the Princesses Caroline and Stéphanie to boycott the opening of the festival and the screening of Olivier Dahan's Grace Of Monaco with, as their parents, Nicole Kidman in the role of Grace Kelly and Tim Roth as Prince Rainier.
The Monegasque royal family are normally regular visitors to the festival where the film is receiving its world premiere out of competition. They have issued a statement suggesting that the film appears to be based on erroneous historical references and doubtful literary liberties. The family have not seen the final film, but have based their views on a reading of the script and watching the trailer, below, which they have described as "fantasy."
The statement continued: "The director and the producers refused to take in to consideration many observations suggested by the palace which would have put the whole script and characters into question. The family do not wish to be associated with the film in any shape or form."
Dahan, who already has had an exchange of words with the American distributor The Weinstein Company and Harvey Weinstein after he threatened to relinquish his option on the film for the United States if his suggested changes were not taken in to account, said that he realised the subject could be "delicate and painful" for those involved. He stressed that were no ulterior or malicious motives in his telling of the story, saying, "I read that the family have claimed that we refused to let them see the finished film. That is not true."
He also said that the family had access to the different versions of the script and that they had accepted some of the modifications. "The story happens at a time in 1962 when the president Charles De Gaulle was in conflict with the Principality over taxes due by French companies who had located there, so there was a certain anti-French feeling in the air. I can't do anything about that. In any case I have the right to make a fiction film from the subject - it is not a historical work, but one by an artist," said Dahan.
The producer Pierre-Ange Le Pogam added his take by saying that it was an original work with a script "that is inspired by real events to build a fiction. It is the work of an artist rather than a political polemic."
Meanwhile, the Cannes Film Festival organisers have defended Dahan's right to exercise "poetic licence." Artistic director Thierry Frémaux stresses it is not a biographical film but one which will contribute in an intriguing way to "the myths about Monaco."
