Cannes Festival 2016 poster pays tribute to Piccoli and Godard

After splashing Marcello Mastroiani across the Croisette in 2015, the Festival de Cannes is this year paying tribute to Jean-Luc Godard and Michel Piccoli. The 2016 poster is in bold yellow, with an image from Godard’s “Le mépris”/Contempt”.

The press release gushes, “It’s all there. The steps, the sea, the horizon: a man’s ascent towards his dream, in a warm Mediterranean light that turns to gold. As an image it is reminiscent of a timeless quote by Michel Mourlet used at the beginning of Contempt: “Cinema replaces our gaze with a world in harmony with our desires”.

No, I’m not sure that actually means anything but it certainly gives the festival poster some je-ne-sais-quoi

No, I’m not sure that actually means anything but it certainly gives the poster some je-ne-sais-quoi.

The image is a still of Michel Piccolo walking up to the roof of the Casa Malaparte in Capri, a house designed for the notorious Italian writer Curzio Malaparte that features strongly in “Le mépris”. Malaparte reputedly threw out the Italian rationalist architect Adalberto Libera’s plans for the house which is located on an isolated cliff and built it himself with local craftsmen. It’s not clear whose input we see in the current building. Libera, who enjoyed the favours of the fascist regime in Italy during the war, felt bullied by Malaparte.

The writer once said: “Now I live on an island, in an austere and melancholy house, which I built myself on a lonely cliff above the sea. [It is] the image of my desire.”

Malaparte also designed the furniture, some of which is still in the house as they were too large to move. Casa Malaporte was vandalised after the writer’s death, but has since been renovated. The poster was designed by Hervé Chigioni and Gilles Frappier.

George Miller presiding Cannes 2016

The 69th edition of the festival will be presided by Australian director George Miller. it kicks off on May 11. The festival also host to the annual Film Market, where next year’s films will be developed and/or sold.