Assignment: Write a love story, set it in Paris, and shoot a five-minute movie about it. And because love and Paris are irresistible, 19 filmmakers took on the task.
The result is Paris, Je T'aime, which includes short films by the Coen brothers, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron and Gurinder Chadha. The movie premiered Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.
``I thought it would be fun to shoot in Paris,'' said director Alexander Payne. ``They weren't paying much money, but I didn't care.''
The movie works because every-one's take on love is different. In Payne's short, an American tourist falls in love with Paris because she treasures the strange mix of loneliness and joy she feels there.
Craven's film is set in Pere Lachaise cemetery -- fitting for a filmmaker adept at horror tales. But there's no horror here: He has Oscar Wilde rise from his grave and advise a young lover.
Gerard Depardieu was co-director for a short starring Gena Rowlands as a woman meeting up with a husband she still has a spark for, though they plan to divorce.
Other members of the star-studded cast: Juliette Binoche, playing a mother grieving for her young son; Steve Buscemi in the hilarious Coen brothers segment about a tourist in the Metro: Nick Nolte as a father in Cuaron's film; and Miranda Richardson as a dying woman whose husband falls in love with her all over again.
French soccer star Zinedine Zidane says he will skip the Cannes Film Festival showing of a documentary movie about him to focus instead on next month's World Cup, his swan song.
Zidane, a Portrait of the 20th Century, gets its release May 24. The midfielder, who will be retiring after the tournament from June 9 until July 9, told TV Magazine that he was ``boggled'' at how the movie turned out, but would not make the Cannes showing.
``I have something very important on the horizon, the World Cup,'' said Zidane, who played his last match for Real Madrid this week.
Ever modest, Zidane said he was initially reticent about the idea of being filmed. "If I had been told one day that I would be on a movie poster, I would have replied, `You're mad!" he said.
Seventeen high-definition cameras filmed Zidane at a match against Villareal in April last year. But he told the magazine that over the 90 minutes, he only touched the ball ``for a minute and a half or two minutes.''
The rest of the time was ``running and gestures that proved useless,'' he said.
France gave actor Sidney Poitier its highest arts honor Thursday at Cannes, where the culture minister praised him for tearing down barriers for black actors in Hollywood.
Poitier was named a commander in France's order of arts and letters. Culture minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told the 79-year-old actor: ``You are the champion of equality between men.''
The actor, who won an Academy Award for Lilies of the Field in 1963, thanked his parents, who were field workers in the Bahamas, for giving him a sense of honesty, integrity and compassion.
He also thanked the directors who broke convention to hire him, calling them ``men who chose to change that pattern because it was not democratic, it was not American, it was not human.''
Thirty-five Indian filmmakers have joined hands to sell movies in various Indian languages at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, a news report said Tuesday.
Until now, the main thrust has been to promote Hindi language movies made in Bombay, India's financial and entertainment capital, at the prestigious festival.
The Indian pavilion at the festival will for the first time try to sell movies made in southern languages, including Rajnikanth's blockbuster Chandramukhi, Mani Ratnam's Lajo and Ravi Verma's Sunflower, the Hindustan Times daily reported.
The effort will also be to sell India as a shooting and post-production destination. Location provider Kas Moviemakers of New Delhi would be represented at the festival, it said.
There is no politician today more colorful than Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯). The recall vote against her on July 26 will test the limits of her unique style, making it one of the most fascinating to watch. Taiwan has a long history of larger-than-life, controversial and theatrical politicians. As far back as 1988, lawmaker Chu Kao-cheng (朱高正) was the first to brawl and — legend has it — was the first to use the most foul Taiwanese Hokkien curse on the floor of the legislature. Current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) has become famous
Crop damage from Typhoon Danas “had covered 9,822 hectares of farmland, more than 1.5 percent of Taiwan’s arable land, with an average loss rate of 30 percent, equivalent to 2,977 hectares of total crop failure,” this paper reported on Thursday last week. Costs were expected to exceed NT$1 billion. The disaster triggered clashes in the legislature last week between members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and China-aligned lawmakers from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) argued that opposition lawmakers should take responsibility for slashing the Ministry of Agriculture’s (MOA)
July 14 to July 20 When Lin Tzu-tzeng (林資曾) arrived in Sansia (三峽) in 1830, he found the local conditions ideal for indigo dyeing. Settlers had already planted indigo across the nearby hills, the area’s water was clean and low in minerals and the river offered direct transport to the bustling port of Bangka (艋舺, modern-day Wanhua District in Taipei). Lin hailed from Anxi (安溪) in Fujian Province, which was known for its dyeing traditions. He was well-versed in the craft, and became wealthy after opening the first dyeing workshop in town. Today, the sign for the Lin Mao Hsing (林茂興) Dye
Summer is in full swing and with the Penghu Fireworks Festival underway, it is peak tourist season in Penghu right now. For anyone planning a trip this summer, you won’t want to miss out on Penghu’s ocean scenery and excellent swimming. However, with literally hundreds of kilometers of coastline and beaches seemingly at every turn, it can be overwhelming to plan your trip. Here, then, is your guide to the beaches of Penghu. This guide covers beaches with road access from Magong (馬公). They have been sorted into three types: those with nice scenery but limited or no swimming, those where
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