Last Sunday marks the official celebration of Cannes' 60th anniversary. And scuttlebutt on the Croisette was that organizers are pulling their hair out over the screening of Chacun Son Cinéma, the series of short films commissioned by the festival and shot by some 35 renowned directors — they are to gather together to stride up the red carpet. Following that, a huge fireworks display is planned and an exclusive party at the far end of town. "It's total madness," said one French industry executive.

Indeed, early in the morning, a screening of the film was followed by a press conference that only added to any tension.

Roman Polanski, who won a Palme d'Or for The Pianist in 2002, apparently got increasingly fed up with what he considered softball questions lobbed by the assembled journalists. At one point before the end of the meeting, he took the microphone and said, "It's a shame to have such poor questions, such empty questions, and I think that it's really the computer which has brought you down to this level. You're no longer interested in what's going on in the cinema. Frankly, let's all go and have lunch."

None of the other directors followed suit, but at a more intimate event later in the day, several failed to turn up. In the media equivalent of speed-dating, round tables were organized with three directors and a handful of journalists meant to have 20-minute discussions before the journalists switched to a new table. Neither Wong Kar-wai nor the Coen brothers were spotted, and Polanski, who was meant to sit with Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg, failed to turn up as well.

Egoyan, however, happily shared his memories of going to the movies. All of the directors asked to participate in Chacun Son Cinéma were given a mandate to talk about the movie theater itself. Egoyan noted that although he didn't put it in his short, "The first time I ever copped a feel was during 'The Sting.' Maybe I should have done that movie!"

Another theme to emerge during the day was annoyance with the lack of intimacy found in movie houses nowadays. "You used to turn off the outside world when you went into a cinema. Now it's a zone that you negotiate," said Egoyan.

Guillermo del Toro, who was in town Sunday morning for a news conference to announce the upcoming release of a world premiere HD-DVD version of Pan's Labyrinth, called the medium "an opportunity to experience film in exactly the same way as at the movies or even better. If you go to the cinemas I do, you get crying children, bad popcorn, terrible sound, and you can hear the explosions from the Schwarzenegger movie playing next door."
 
(Agencies via CRI.cn May 21, 2007)