The Cannes film festival has announced the film that will occupy its prestigious closing slot: environmental documentary La Glace et le Ciel (Ice and Sky), directed by Luc Jacquet.
Jacquet is best known for his international hit March of the Penguins, which won the best documentary Oscar in 2005, and has returned to the Antarctic for this study of the work of glaciologist Claude Lorius, whose pioneering work analysing ice samples, starting in the late 1950s, led to our current understanding of planetary temperature fluctuations, greenhouse gases and global warming. Cannes describes the film as “a hymn to save the planet”.
The selection of Jacquet’s film, which will not compete for the Palme d’Or, means that both opening and closing films are by homegrown film-makers, in what has been a strong year for French cinema at the festival. It also puts an end to speculation that either of the high-profile British hopes for Cannes – Ben Wheatley’s High Rise and Terence Davies’s Sunset Song – would be handed the berth, leaving Asif Kapadia as the only UK director in the official selection, with the Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy.
The Cannes film festival runs from 13 to 24 May.
