Rare movies at Cannes

African cinema is rarely seen outside of Africa itself, with only a very few festivals worldwide devoting time to the new voices. The Pan-African Film Festival offers a unique opportunity to catch films from – this year – Morocco, Trinidad and Tobago,  Guadeloupe and elsewhere. In all, some 50 films will be shown this year.

International jury

This year’s honorary president is the Canadian actress and producer Tetchena BELLANGE. The jury will be headed by the Algerian director Mohammed Soudani. Concerts and gala dinners will be held at the Hotel Martinez and Hotel Miramar.

Trailer for “Le bonheur d’Elza”, showing at Cannes. For full details about the festival, visit Festival du film pan-Africain de Cannes.

Check for Cannes hotels during the festival

For the 6th time, the Break the Floor festival will be held on January 13 and 14, 2012. The first night will be dedicated to 8 duos in the Newstyle and Powermove styles. On Saturday 14, the 5 best worldwide breakdance troupes will face off with the 3 best French teams.

Get the details on their Facebook page

Hotels, the Croisette and port off bounds

In practical terms, access to the town will be difficult between October 31 at midnight and Friday November 4 at 6pm at least. As you can see from the map, the inner city has been divided into two:

• Zone 1 includes the port, Palais, hotels and Croisette, which are all closed to everyone without a badge Oct 31 (midnight) to Nov 4 at 6pm
• Zone 2 includes the area between the railway tracks and Le Suquet. It will be closed to anyone without a badge Nov 1-4.

Extraordinary measures – such as locking manholes – have been taken, and the city will doubtless have a serious cleaning up period afterwards. It has been announced that the Schengen agreements will be suspended for the period, to try and keep organised gangs from attending (notably from Italy). Strict police controls can be expected across the region, with a strong likelihood of disturbances to train and bus schedules. There will also be heavy helicopter traffic throughout the week.

So my advice is stay away for the period if at all possible.

The news is interesting, and is good news for the town of Cannes as well, as it will provide concert-goers from across the south of France with a reason to visit the town. Until this year, the concerts – though often very impressive – were mostly for delegates only.

The concert industry in 2012

It will be interesting to see if this changes Midem’s standing in the industry, as promoters usually chose between attending Eurosonic in the Netherlands just prior to Midem or the Cannes event. If they were primarily in the live concert business, that wasn’t much of a choice; Cannes was losing every year. Yet as Midem itself was always anxious to underline, live music has become one of the most solid foundations in a very weakened industry. Much of an artist’s career revolves around concerts in one way or another. Midem had created special events for live music professionals and artist managers.

The other major axis on which Midem has invested heavily over the past few years is the digital sphere, with incubator events such as MidemLab creating bridges between the developer community and the music business.

The live concerts will be produced by the French company Alias, which has built its reputation on high-profile events such as Les Inrocks as well as concerts by Adele and Muse. In addition to major concerts, there will be a series of smaller “off-Midem” showcase gigs held around  town which will surely bring an extra vibe to the whole event.

Photo of Ct4l Swap playing in Cannes by Jean Sébastien Zanchi

Why not save money at Midem, pre-book your hotel right now!

Early birds get the best beds at the best price.

Participants ill be given 30,000 tokens for game plays of 45 minutes. Three tickets for the Super Sat WSOP-Europe are also up for grabs. Satellite games with a buy-in of €150 will be held on Thursday 14 and Friday 15, with a €250 tournament being held on Sunday at 5pm. The last winner walked away with nearly €25,000.

Programme

Thursday 14- 20h00
satellite €150

Friday 15 -20h00
Satellite €150

Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 – 14h00
Freeze out €1000

Sunday 17 – 17h
Freeze out €250

Programme:

• July 4 Place Sainte Jeanne (La Frayère) > Moi moche et méchant (animation) by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud.

• July 11 : Parking Berthelot/ex- Diabolika (Mimont -Prado-République) > Tout ce qui brille de et avec Géraldine Nakache et Leïla Bekhti.

• July 18: Marché de la Bocca > Les aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec by Luc Besson with Louise Bourgoin and Gilles Lellouch.

• July 25: Parking médiathèque (Ranguin) > Alice au pays des merveilles de Tim Burton avec Johnny Depp.

• August 1: Les gradins du Riou (Riou-Petit Juas-Vallergues) > Sherlock Holmes by Guy Ritchie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

• August 8: Place Saint Jin-Jin (Pointe Croisette) > Les petits mouchoirs by Guillaume Canet with Marion Cotillard and François Cluzet.

• August 16 at 9.30: Boulodrome Musso (Suquet) > L’Arnacœur by Pascal Chaumeil with Vanessa Paradis and  Romain Duris.

• August 22 at 9.30: Parvis du Palais des Festivals  > The Social Network by David Fincher with Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake.

• August 29 at 9.30: Lycée Carnot (Boulevard Carnot) > L’amour s’est mieux à deux by Dominique Farrugia with Virginie Efira and Clovis Cornillac.

Poker plays a growing role in Cannes

Hot news this week is that Cannes is going to host another major poker event later in the year: the World Series of Poker (WSOP). For the past four years, this has been held in London. But between October 7-21, the gaming will be held at the Casino Barrière and Hotel Majestic. The new venue will feature 75 tables, effectively doubling the capacity in 2010. Some 450 players are expected.

The event will be the highlight of a major poker tour of France. From April, towns such as Toulouse, Nice, Lille, Dinard, Enghien, Trouville and Bordeaux will have qualifying rounds. The WSOP was founded in 1970 and is one of the world’s foremost poker brands. As well as hosting the WSOP Europe, France’s Lucien Barrière group also has plans to launch WSOP.fr and clearly position itself as a major online and live poker organiser.

Cannes also hosts the Partouche Poker Tour in September.

Registration of films and application for accreditation for the International Pan-African Film Festival of Cannes are now open.

Festival Location: Cannes, FRANCE

Date: April 13-17, 2011

Closing date for film entries: February 20, 2011

Film Genres Sought: Fiction/ Narrative, Documentary, Animation …

Category: Long, Medium, Short film

Competition Categories for Dikalo Award : Long, Short, Jury Award …

Registration form.

For information contact: +33 (0) 6 10 04 69 44 +33 (0) 4 93 99 75 87

A report in French about the festival on Culture Box.

Découvrez Festival International du film Panafricain de Cannes sur Culturebox !

Ruelle joined Radio France in 1969, which became RFI two years later.  Working there as a journalist, she began specializing in cinema in 1973, producing Dialogues, Cinémas Sans Frontières and L’Actualité du Cinéma.
  A film critic for many publications (Afrique-Asie, Le Monde Diplomatique …) and founder of the association Racines, which she has chaired since 1984, Catherine Ruelle has organized festivals and events devoted to Pan-African Film – Racines Noires, Rencontres des Cinémas du Monde Noir, Ciné-Contes avec Makéna Diop, et le Ciné-Club Afrique à Paris, since January 2005.
  Since 1979, she has worked in various capacities as President, or member of the Organizing Committee of international film festivals in Paris, Cannes, Milan and Geneva.

In 1980, she co-organized the first festival ever in Europe that celebrates Black American independent filmmakers and with her founding of Racines in 1984 she produced the first annual International Roots Film Festival at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
  She has also co-founded in partnership with acclaimed Senegalese director Mahama Traoré the special award Djibril Diop Mambety at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2008 she was appointed Artistic Director of Midsummer’s Night Dream Digital Film Festival in Paris.
  Jury member for numerous festivals including Fespaco, the Festival of African Cinema of Milan and the Festival of Paris, she co-authored several books (including CinemAction in 1978, with Guy Hennebelle and The Birth of African Cinema, with Alessandra Speciale Turin, 1998) and undertaken with the Cameroonian journalist Samé Ngosso a study of film and TV in Africa (UNESCO, 1982).

The Pan-African Film Festival was created to celebrate movies from Africa and the African diaspora, and is now one of the most prestigious dates on the African festival circuit. In addition to cinema,e it also showcases fashion.

More about the Pan-African Film Festival

Cannes fireworks, courtesy of Tweetphoto @TheMaterialMan

The firework show is always very popular, so you can expect congestion and traffic jams before and after. best to leave the car on the far side of the voie rapide or come by train (just don’t miss the last one home!).

There are still good value deals available for Cannes hotels for the New Year. See our selection here.