Creaseless red carpets. Bronzed, bottle-enhanced legs. Impossibly white teeth. Dresses costing roughly the same as a small family sedan. George Clooney waving and looking smug. For most, these are the images of the Cannes Film Festival, which opened its 65th edition on Wednesday. But away from the headlines and camera flashes, a small group of celebrated names from the film world are unlikely to be seeing much of the French Riviera's glitz and glamour and, as we speak, are (probably) hiding away together in a darkened screening room.
"Forget about parties and going to bed at four in the morning, you have to be really awake to properly watch a movie," says the Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, part of the jury for the all-important Main Competition. "It's not like you pay to watch a film and if you fall asleep halfway through you can go and watch it again. This is the game of a juror."
The Nazareth-born Abbass, who has been living in Paris for the past 23 years, is sitting alongside names such as Ewan McGregor, Diane Kruger and Alexander Payne in the jury that will decide who takes home the coveted Palme d'Or, a prize that this year sees competition from some of the world's most accomplished directors. Among the 22 films in the selection are titles from Cannes titans Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach, plus favourites David Cronenburg, Walter Salles and Matteo Garrone.
"It's going to be tough," admits Abbass. "There are so many directors who I love in there, whose work I love. It will be interesting to have to make a choice. I have to be humble enough to look at their work and let my emotions really talk."
Thankfully, she won't have to worry about finding her way around, having become something of a Cannes veteran herself. Beginning with the 1996 Palestinian drama Haifa, in which she starred, she has sinceattended the festival for Yousry Nasrallah's 2004 war film The Gate of Sun, 2005's Free Zone, in which she starred alongside Natalie Portman, Amreeka in 2009 (which won the Fipresci prize for the director Cherien Dabis), and last year for The Source.
The next time Abbass strolls along Le Croisette, it could well be to work from behind the camera lens. She recentlyfinished her directorial feature-length debut, Inheritance, a family drama set in Galilee in the summer of 2006, around the time of the Israel and Lebanon war. "It's been a great experience, a big project in my life. Now I would love to show the movie and see the reaction," she says.
Abbass completed the post-production of Inheritance around the same time as she was on tour with a theatre group around France, performing a modern interpretation of Jean Racine's tragedy Phèdre, which she only finished a few days before heading to Cannes.
"I've been really enjoying it," says Abbass, adding that she has committed herself to the project, which will carry on touring until it finishes as a performance in seven languages next year in Marseille, European Capital of Culture for 2013.
But she'll also squeeze in some more acting, with a project due in Morocco with the follow up to Laila Marrakchi's hugely successful 2005 debut Marock.
But flitting back and forth from acting to directing, from one side of the camera to the other, isn't something that troubles her. "I think my balance in life is between both," she says. "I like to abandon myself in characters other directors see me in. As an actress, I never really finished learning."
Unfortunately, juggling these responsibilities, along with her stage work and position on the Cannes jury, hasn't left much room for relaxation.
"We finish in Cannes on May 27, I leave for Tangiers the following morning and I shoot on the same day."
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Pari
Produced by: Clean Slate Films (Anushka Sharma, Karnesh Sharma) & KriArj Entertainment
Director: Prosit Roy
Starring: Anushka Sharma, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ritabhari Chakraborty, Rajat Kapoor, Mansi Multani
Three stars
Points tally
1. Australia 52; 2. New Zealand 44; 3. South Africa 36; 4. Sri Lanka 35; 5. UAE 27; 6. India 27; 7. England 26; 8. Singapore 8; 9. Malaysia 3
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
THE BIO
Ms Davison came to Dubai from Kerala after her marriage in 1996 when she was 21-years-old
Since 2001, Ms Davison has worked at many affordable schools such as Our Own English High School in Sharjah, and The Apple International School and Amled School in Dubai
Favourite Book: The Alchemist
Favourite quote: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail
Favourite place to Travel to: Vienna
Favourite cuisine: Italian food
Favourite Movie : Scent of a Woman
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
MATCH INFO
Karnataka Tuskers 110-5 (10 ovs)
Tharanga 48, Shafiq 34, Rampaul 2-16
Delhi Bulls 91-8 (10 ovs)
Mathews 31, Rimmington 3-28
Karnataka Tuskers win by 19 runs
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The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners