The Cannes film festival is all about emotion, on and off the screen.
Whether it be the daily waltz of the stars smiling for the cameras on the red carpet, or the discreet tears of an African director as he thanks his team and his sponsors for their support. The cinema is one of the few public spaces in which we are encouraged to get carried away.
The day began with a screening of The Gravedigger’s Wife in the category known as the Semaine de la Critique, Critics' Week, which is celebrating its 60th year.
The Gravedigger’s Wife is the first feature-length film by Finnish-Somalian director Khader Ayderus Ahmed, who was met with loud applause as he came up onto the stage dressed in a traditional white outfit, with his two lead actors, and some members of his crew and distributors.
His first words were an apology, since he was so overcome with emotion that he had to wipe away some tears before he could go on.
He explained that his mother and brother and some close friends were in the audience and he was very moved.
Where there's a will there's a way
His film takes us to Djibouti, where we meet 45-year-old Guled, played by Omar Abdi, whose sole income comes from gravedigging for the local hospital.
He cares deeply for his wife Nasra, played by Yasmin Wasame, a beautiful and proud woman, but a fragile one. We gradually understand that she is dying and urgently needs costly treatment. Guled tries various other odd jobs, but in the end, he decides to return to his village and bring back goats to sell to pay the medical bills.
There is also their young son, Mahad, a discreet presence at first who has his own troubles and runs around the old railway yards with other boys, skipping school. But his role grows as the film moves forward and he realises what an enormous sacrifice his father is making.
Walk a mile in another person’s shoes
Guled walks for several days across the arid land to go to his village, returning to those who foresook him because he ran away to marry the woman he loved.
We begin to hear the story of how he met her and how his first words were “I love you”.
There is a deliciously funny moment, one of several in the film, when he stops near a camp and begs the woman to give him a shoe as his sandal has broken and his foot is injured. "Any kind of shoe" he says, and we see him hobble away wearing a woman’s red plastic high heel slip-on a few sizes too small.
He is faced with extreme adversity, and later the wrath of his family, but he keeps on. It’s a beautiful message of love and hope and sacrifice, told in a way which is not overbearing, it lets your emotions range widely as you take in the various perspectives of the characters.
It is all the more touching when we realise that the director chose non-professional actors and filmed the whole story in just 21 days.
A touch of leather
In the afternoon, it was time for a rendezvous with French fashion designer Jean-Claude Jitrois, known for his suave leather dresses and jackets in jazzy colours. He agreed to meet me on the terrace of the Martinez hotel for a little chat (in French) about the dress he had made especially for French actress Axelle Marine to wear on the red carpet on Wednesday evening to the premiere of Everything Went Well (Tout s’est bien passé) by François Ozon, starring Sophie Marceau.
Jitrois recounted his close connection with the festival over the years and told anecdotes of his creative collaboration with Isabelle Huppert, also present on Wednesday among the red carpeters.
From Africa to Afghanistan
Over at the Cinemas du Monde Pavillion, I met Mattys Boshoff from South Africa. His project, Flesh of my Flesh, his second feature film, is the story of how a car accident shakes a family to its core. He is looking for international partners to help take the film to a wider audience.
There was Amédée Pacôme Nkoulou from Gabon, who has brought his first feature film Les Fresques des Oubliés (Frescoes of the Forgotten) to Cannes to workshop. It’s the first time a film from Gabon has been selected to participate in the French support programme.
I also chatted with Sahra Mani from Afghanistan whose presence at Cannes is an act of resistance in itself, coming from a country where the Taliban is utterly destroying the futures of women and girls, especially banning them from publicly practising music, which is at the heart of her film Kaboul Melody. Although she has made numerous award-winning short documentaries and has founded her own production company, this is her first feature-length film.
Rendez-vous with Jane and Charlotte
To round off the very full Day Two at Cannes, I managed to squeeze in a late-night screening of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Jane par Charlotte, a documentary based on a series of interviews Gainsbourg recorded with her mother, singer Jane Birkin.
It is a lovely portrait of three generations of women, as Charlotte’s daughter also appears. Charlotte's approach is natural, unobtrusive, and allows us gentle insight into a family which has grown up in the spotlight both in France and abroad. But here we see simply a love letter (or song) written from daughter to mother.
When the two women came on stage at the Debussy theatre to greet the audience, Charlotte simply said she was happy to have her mum there, and Jane responded with "Viva Charlotte!"
For the second time in the day I heard the words “I love you,” ones which I think will resonate in my ears long after leaving the cinema.
So, like I said emotion all round! Something for everyone.
