The issue of bullying is also addressed by the Japanese Hirokazu Kore-eda in his film “Monster”, another candidate for the Palme d’Or.
At 64, Ceylan is an old acquaintance on the Croisette: he received the Grand Jury Prize in 2003 for “Far Away” and in 2011 for “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” and the Best Director Award for “Three Monkeys” ( 2008).
For his part, Kaouther Ben Hania, 45, will present “Les filles d’Olfa”, a film that evokes the disappearance of two daughters of a Tunisian woman and “borders on the essay”, according to Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Festival.
Ben Hania was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film two years ago with “The Man Who Sold His Skin”, and participated in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2017 with “Beauty and the dogs”.
The third film on Friday is “The Zone of Interest”, by the British Jonathan Glazer, based on a novel by his compatriot Martin Amis published in 2014 and which deals with the daily life of a Nazi commander and his family in charge of the extermination camp in Auschwitz.
Glazer premiered in 2013 “Under the Skin”, played by an alien Scarlett Johansson implacable with men, and “Reincarnation”, with Nicole Kidman, in 2004.
Near the Palacio de Festivales, the heart of the event, the police detected a suspicious package this Friday that sparked nervousness. The police intervened and cordoned off the area.
But shortly after it was ruled out that it was dangerous: the package was “a suitcase forgotten by a tourist,” said Philippe Loos, secretary general of the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture (southeast).
Not far away, also on the waterfront, a union protest took place at the newly renovated Carlton Hotel, where hotel workers voiced their opposition to the French government’s pension reform.
These protests have been going on for months, despite the fact that the reform has already been approved in Parliament, and the prefecture had ordered a ban on demonstrations in a perimeter around the Palace of Festivals, to avoid disturbances.
But this protest took place inside the hotel compound, so it could be held. There were about twenty demonstrators according to the prefecture, and about thirty according to the CGT union.