By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Posted Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 - Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
Be Sociable, Share!

VALERIA BRUNI-TEDESCHI

Background: Italian-French; born Turin, Italy, 1964. Bruni-Tedeschi is the older sister of Carla Bruni, chanteuse and France’s previous first lady.

Known for / style: Acting in Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005) and François Ozon’s 5×2 (2004); directing It’s Easier for a Camel… (2003) and Actrices (2007); weaving autobiographical elements into her narratives; working in television, cinema, and theater; casting herself in her films.

Notable accolades: While the majority of Bruni-Tedeschi’s awards are for her career as an actor, her directing filmography is not without merit: in 2003, she won the Louis Delluc prize for Best First Film (It’s Easier for a Camel…), a prize given by a panel of experts and headed by Cannes president Gilles Jacob; in 2007, the director won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes for her Un Certain Regard debut Actrices. For her acting, Bruni-Tedeschi holds both a César (Most Promising Actress, 1993’s Normal People Are Nothing Exceptional) and two Pasinetti Awards for Best Actress (5×2 and 1999’s Empty Days).

Previous Cannes appearances: As a director, Bruni-Tedeschi has debuted only one film at Cannes: Actrices, which played in the 2007 Un Certain Regard program. As an actress, however, she has walked the Croisette seven times: 1996’s La Seconda Volta (Competition), 1997’s The House (Un Certain Regard), 1998’s Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train (Competition), 1999’s Empty Days and La Balia (both Competition), 2005’s Time to Leave (Un Certain Regard), and Actrices.

Film she’s bringing to Cannes: Un Château en Italie (A Castle in Italy), a French-language dramatic comedy starring Bruni-Tedeschi, Louis Garrel (2003’s The Dreamers and Bruni-Tedeschi’s romantic partner), Filippo Timi (The American), and Xavier Beauvois (director of 2010 Cannes Grand Prix-winning Of Gods and Men). IMDb believes the film is about “a family forced to sell their Italian home”; other details hint at a sick brother, a family falling apart, and a romance between Louise (Bruni-Tedeschi) and Nathan (Garrel).

Could it win the Palme? From a gender perspective, Bruni-Tedeschi is the only female director in a Competition of twenty pictures; a fact that will remain, for better or for worse, at the back of everyone’s minds throughout the Festival. Fortunately for Bruni-Tedeschi, with Lynne Ramsay, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Kawase, and Vidya Balan on the Palme d’Or jury, the quartet may turn Gang Of Four and back a fellow femme. Bruni-Tedeschi’s potential allegiances look strong, and if her picture is excellent—which it may very well be—the case for a second female Palme-winner is compelling, especially in the presence of Palme laureate Jane Campion (who is set to adjudicate the 2013 Short Film program).

Why you should care: Casting herself and her real-life partner as the film’s central romance, Bruni-Tedeschi has set things up to involve a believable and natural connection, which may translate well on-screen. And while it’s a shame for a number of reasons that Un Château en Italie will be known as the “female film” in Competition, the reputations of everyone involved give promise that the film will earn more deserving labels.

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon