The main cultural
event is the International Film Festival, which
was first planned for 1939, cancelled because of the outbreak of
war and then rescheduled for 1946. The festival gradually grew in
size and importance, with the participation in the 1950s and 60s
of Cocteau, Bardot, Truffaut and Goddard
and the addition of the International Film Market, International
Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight.
By the 1970s, the festival had become big business, as important
for networking as for awarding the prizes, including the prestigious
Palme d’Or, and increasingly presenting mainstream
Hollywood films. Roman Polanski picked up the coveted
prize in 2002, for his directorial return for The Pianist,
a holocaust tale of a Polish pianist who escapes a Nazi death camp
with the aid of a German officer.
For ticket reservation contact Palais des Festivals
(telephone number: (04) 9298 6277 or SEMEC (telephone number: (04)
9339 0101) for reduced prices for groups. Tickets for general cultural
performance and events in Cannes are available
at the venue, online (website: www.cannes.fr)
or from FNAC, 83 rue d’Antibes (telephone number: (04) 9706
2950).
The monthly French-only publication, Le Mois a Cannes,
available from the Cannes
Tourist Office, provides cultural listings. Listings are also
available online (website: www.cannes.fr).
Music
During the Musical Nights of Le Suquet, international
orchestras perform in the Palais des Festivals,
Esplanade Georges Pompidou, and chamber orchestras play on the steps
of Notre Dame de l’Espérance in Le
Suquet. Leading orchestras present during the festival, such as
the Cannes Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur Regional Orchestra.
Others perform throughout the year, most notably during the biennial
International Classical Music Festival.
Other principal venues include the Théâtre
Debussy, in the Palais des Festivals, and the Théâtre
Palais Croisette in the Hotel Noga Hilton, 50 boulevard
de la Croisette. MIDEM (International Market for
Records and Music Publishing) programmes jazz, classical and contemporary
concerts in January.
Theatre
During the International Actors’ Performance Festival,
small venues are used to stage humorous sketches, which can be enjoyed
over a drink. Productions are often performed in the Espace
Miramar, on the corner of La Croisette and rue Pasteur
(telephone number: (04) 9343 8626) and the smaller theatre Alexandre
III, 19 boulevard Alexandre III (telephone number: (04)
9394 3344). Actors training at the prestigious theatre school, ERAC
(Cannes’ Regional Actors’ School), put on regular productions.
Dance
The
Ecole Supérieure de Danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower,
5 rue de Colmar (telephone number: (04) 9306 7979, fax number: (04)
9306 7978), prepares 7 to 18-year-olds for their Baccalauréat
and a career in international ballet. In addition to regular performances,
the biennial International Dance Festival, presided
over by Rosella Hightower herself, comprises a mix of neo-classical,
contemporary, minimalist and postmodern dance.
Film
Since the International
Film Festival is reserved for professionals only, the Cannes
Festival Forum, in May, organises meetings and screenings
for film fans. Young critics are targeted at numerous writing workshops
during Cannes’ Cinematographic Meeting, in
December. In Festival Panorama, 10 feature films that have won awards
in various international festivals compete.
Films made in Cannes and the Riviera include Truth or Dare/In
Bed with Madonna (1991) and the Cary Grant and Grace Kelly
classic, To Catch a Thief (1955).
Cinemas in the city include Arcades, 77 rue Félix
Faure (telephone number: (04) 9339 0098 or (08) 3668 0039), Olympia,
16 rue de la Pompe (telephone number: (04) 9339 1393 or (08) 3668
0029), and Studio 13, 23 avenue du Dr Picaud (telephone
number: (04) 9306 2990). Salle Raimu, avenue de la Borde (telephone
number: (04) 9347 2116), shows original versions of art films.
Cultural events
Other than the International Film Festival, in
May, an event that attracts the crème de la crème
of the film fraternity, Cannes has a smattering of annual events,
particularly over the summer season, which features the International
Fireworks Festival, in July, a competition that draws 1.5
million spectators. The Musical Nights of Le Suquet
takes place in mid-July in Le Suquet. The winter season includes
the unfailingly good International Dance Festival
in December.
Literary Notes
F Scott Fitzgerald is the most famous writer
to glamorise the Riviera. The literary fruits of his frequent visits
between 1924-29 created a myth of 1920s excess, best exemplified
in his novels The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender
is the Night (1934), in which he wrote: ‘Cannes,
Nice, Monte Carlo – began to glow through their camouflage,
whispering of old kings come to dine or die, of rajahs tossing Buddha’s
eyes to English ballerinas, of Russian princes turning the weeks
into Baltic twilights in the lost caviar days.’ |
