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| Charlie Chaplin back in the spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival with a Classic screening of The Gold Rush Photo: © Roy Export Company Ltd |
The centenary of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush will scoop the Cannes Film Festival’s official opening later in the day with a matinee screening on 13 May in the Debussy auditorium.
The 4K restoration of the enduring classic was carried out by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, using elements created by Photoplay and from archival material generously provided by the BFI National Archive, Blackhawk Films, the Lobster Films Collection, Das Bundesarchiv, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, the George Eastman Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
French sales company mk2 Films is planning a world-wide re-release of the film from 26 June.
The festival also has added in the world premiere of Diane Kurys’s film, The One I Loved (Moi Qui t’Aimais), which narrates the tempestuous relationship between French stars Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. The festival will kick off officially on 13 May with Amélie Bonnin's debut film Bye Bye (Partir Un Jour), showing out of competition. The organisers suggest that it is worth recalling that Kurys was the first female director to open Cannes in 1987, with A Man In Love (Un Homme Amoureux). The screening of the new film in the Agnès Varda theatre will take place in the presence of Kurys, Marina Foïs, Roschdy Zem and Thierry de Peretti.
Among other titles in the Classics strand is a 25th anniversary celebration of Amores Perros by Alejandro G Iñárritu, who will be in attendance, as well as a tribute to Edward Yang with the restored print of Yi Yi, and the re-release of John Woo’s Hard Boiled.
The 90th anniversary of Marcel Pagnol’s Merlusse, will be marked with a special screening on the 50th anniversary of Pagnol’s death and the 130th anniversary of his birth. The screening will also celebrate the 70th anniversary of Pagnol's presidency of the Cannes Jury. The film was said to have inspired Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers and ties in with the Cannes Special Screening of Sylvain Chomet’s animation The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol.
Other retro gems include a film on cycling legend Eddy Merckx La Course En Tête by Joël Santoni, and a celebration of Hungarian director István Szabó who has been five times in Competition, won the Jury Prize in 1985 with Colonel Redl, and was a member of the Jury in 1986. Szabó will be honoured at an evening screening of a newly restored film about him produced by Robert Lantos.
The final film in the packed run of Classics will be Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Barry Lyndon in a brand-new 4K restoration showing on 23 May 23 in the Debussy.
The Cannes Film Festival runs from 13 to 24 May.
