Cannes Report, Day 7: Hollywood Women Disrupt Festival, 'Loving' Courts Early Awards Attention

While there are only three female directors competing at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme d’Or out of 21, women have made a powerful showing.

Now a week into the program, Hollywood women have revolted to delightful and meaningful effect. Susan Sarandon and Jodie Foster have stood out for their outspokenness, Maren Ade with her competition sensation “Toni Edman,” and Julia Roberts‘ with her barefoot protest of painful high heels at her Croisette debut.

“I think studio executives are scared, period,” Foster said at the top of the festival when asked in a panel about the shortage of women behind the camera.

Also Read: 'Personal Shopper' Cannes Review: Does Kristen Stewart Drama Deserve All Those Boos?

“I think this is the most risk-averse period in movie history. Now so many things have changed in terms of the economy, the structure of studios,” she said, adding that everyone should “get used to the landscape.”

Foster had the festival’s highest star wattage with her film “Money Monster,” starring George Clooney and Roberts. The Oscar winner seemed to defy last year’s poorly received dress code, which shamed women who wore flats to gala screenings in the Grand Palais theater. (Breakout star Sasha Lane, of “American Honey,” also went barefoot).

Sarandon, marking the 25th anniversary of her iconic female-empowerment adventure “Thelma & Louise,” spoke frankly and unapologetically about a subject many tiptoe around in the industry — director Woody Allen, who opened Cannes with his latest ensemble “Cafe Society.”

Also Read: Cannes Sales: STX, Amazon, A24, Weinstein Company Lead in Pricey Deal-Making

“I think he sexually assaulted a child and I don’t think that’s right,” the 69-year-old said during a panel. “I have nothing good to say about him, I don’t want to go there.”

French comedian Laurent Lafitte caused some pearl-clutching at the opening night screening with a rape joke aimed at Allen that was really intended for exiled director Roman Polanski.

“You’ve shot so many of your films here in Europe and yet in the U.S. you haven’t even been convicted of rape,” Lafitte said. Allen brushed it off saying worse had been said about him — though Sarandon hadn’t hit town yet.

While last year’s female-directed stories failed to captivate, two this year have won festival attention — the unanimously praised “Toni Erdmann” from Ade, and Andrea Arnold‘s divisive “American Honey.”

Also Read: 'Toni Erdmann' Cannes Review: Spectacular Father-Daughter Comedy Knocks the Festival for a Loop

In the German-language “Erdmann,” Ade depicts an aging father pulling a series of pranks on his terribly serious daughter in an effort to get her to lighten up. The film broke records for good reviews, according to Screen International, and was scooped up immediately by Sony Pictures Classics.

“Honey” has sharply divided festival-goers, as the pop-song-fueled odyssey into the American Midwest draws a certain portrait of drug-addicted, impoverished fly-over states. But Arnold has received major props for the film’s emotional resonance, her discovery of the aforementioned Lane and the impossible task of restoring a halo to male lead Shia LaBeouf.

Disruption is welcome — it’s a conversation that’s been raging in Hollywood for some time — but it hasn’t always been welcome at the long-conservative institution that is Cannes. There can be black tie at the revolution.

Elsewhere on the Croisette…

“Loving” An Early Awards Favorite

Jeff Nichols‘ interracial period drama made a big impression, one that is already suggesting little gold men down the road for the film starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga.

The pair play Richard and Mildred Loving, an ordinary couple trying to build a life — though one is black and the other white, which was a criminal offense in their time and place, late 1950s Virginia.

It’s a genre departure for Nichols (“Take Shelter,” “Midnight Special”) but with his similar moody effect, wrote TheWrap’s Ben Croll:

Edgerton plays his part well, but his character is a man of few words and even fewer facial expressions, so the role hardly offers a showcase for the actor’s range. Negga, on the other hand, is the real breakout. The laconic Nichols is not one for swelling strings or sweeping melodrama, and so he lets the film’s big emotional beats play out on her face. The net effect is that when thinking of the film’s poignancy, one thinks about Negga. That’s going to be an ace in her sleeve for the rest of the year.

Bobby The Boxer

In the seemingly annual tradition of guts-and-glory boxing movies that international film audiences must endure, here came Robert De Niro with “Hands Of Stone,” this one again brought by Harvey Weinstein (last year’s “Southpaw”).

“Hands” tells the story of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán, starring Edgar Ramirez as Durán and De Niro as his longtime trainer Ray Arcel.

Wisely, the festival screening was accompanied by a career tribute to De Niro, who politely said “thank you” following a clip package of his work, and needed to be reminded to plug the film.

“The movie has been made the way it should have been made,” De Nior said. “So I hope — we hope — that you enjoy the movie.”

Get TheWrap’s complete Cannes 2016 coverage here.

11 Best Cannes Moments, From Madonna to Jerry Lewis' Hotel-Trashing Poodle (Photos)

"In 1991, Sean Penn had directed a movie ['The Indian Runner'] and Madonna was in a different movie ['Truth or Dare']. This was after their marriage had broken up. Roger and I went to a nice party, and he spoke to Charles Bronson and Sean Penn and this other lady sitting next to Sean. And eventually Roger said to me, 'I'm tired and I have to get up early, but I know my editors will want something about Sean and Madonna. So I have to wait until she gets here.' I said, 'You've been talking to her for the last half hour.'"
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Jessica Chastain: "Cannes was really my first festival. I was there with 'The Tree of Life,' and I walked down my first red carpet with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, the three of us holding each other's hands. But I was also there for this very small film I made for $100 a day ['Take Shelter'], which won the grand prize at Critics' Week, and 'The Wettest County in the World' [renamed 'Lawless'], which had a bidding war that Harvey Weinstein won...
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Jessica Chastain continues: "And on the last day of the festival I was back home, having breakfast with one of the producers of 'Wettest County,' and my phone kept going off. And I finally picked it up, and there was a text: 'Palme d'Or, "Tree of Life."' I actually started crying in the middle of the restaurant. I feel like my career was born in Cannes."
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Mark Damon, CEO, Foresight Unlimited: "We brought Jerry Lewis to Cannes way back in 1983 for 'The King of Comedy.' Well, he not only insisted on a suite for himself, but also a separate suite for his dog at the Carlton. A tiny little French poodle had a suite all to himself! The dog wound up shitting all over the carpet and the Carlton Hotel expelled Jerry and his dog before he could do any promotional work for us."
Jerry Lewis
Elizabeth Kim Schwan, President of International, Covert Media:
"In one of my early years of attending Cannes, I went to the premiere of 'About Schmidt.' Walking down the red carpet I was enjoying the moment, looking up at the Palais and the steps to the theater. Suddenly the paparazzi began to take notice of me, yelling at me to get my attention, and the flashes started going off. I wondered who they were mistaking me for when suddenly I realized they were yelling 'bouge!' to me, which means 'move!' Turns out Gina Gershon was right behind me."
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Stuart Ford, CEO, IM Global:
"My No. 1 memory arises from a few years ago when Martin Scorsese and I spent a day in a Majestic penthouse suite jointly pitching key foreign distributors on his career-long passion project 'Silence' [now in postproduction]. It was Marty's first-ever experience personally pre-selling his movie in Cannes -- but I was all the time wondering to myself, 'Why the hell does he need me here?' That's a guy who knows how to pitch a movie."
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Nadine de Barros, co-founder, Fortitude International:
"I was at the Majestic, and there was a buyer at the concierge desk -- he'd forgotten to put his suitcase into the taxi. The concierge calls the airport, then turns to the buyer and says, 'I'm sorry, but your suitcase? Kaboom!' The airport had blown the suitcase up since it was sitting out front and no one was there to claim it. The buyer did the entire Cannes market with holes burned in his sweater, suits and pants -- anything that hadn't been totally burned to a crisp. That's why I hand-carry all my clothes on the plane."
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Mimi Steinbauer, CEO, Radiant Films International:
"My very favorite Cannes memory is being up at a fabulous chateau for New Line's party when we were selling the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. The best moment was when black horses and horsemen came riding across the lawn in front of the chateau. As the evening drew to a close the owner of the chateau, a dashing older gentlemen seemingly straight out of a movie set, asked me to move to France and live there with him--not really my cup of tea, but a fun path-not-chosen moment in life."
Joni Sighvatsson, chairman, Scanbox International:
"My first Cannes was back in 1986, with my then-partner at Propaganda Films, Steve Golin, and Michael Kuhn. The three of us rented a tiny apartment, bunking together to make ends meet, running up and down the Croisette talking to anyone that would listen. Fast-forward four years, we were standing alongside David Lynch on the Palais stage, accepting the Palme D' Or for 'Wild at Heart.' That night was a blur, but we partied hard at the Carlton, and all I remember is the five-figure champagne bill."
Laura Walker, CEO, AG Capital: "In 2011 or 2012 I got a call in the middle of the night from someone telling me Sean Combs' yacht needed to be parked at the old port next to the Palais. I made some calls begging, borrowing and negotiating to make it happen. I got him the only parking spot where his yacht would fit, and I became his agent after that. Then he threw a big party, which was very generous, and I got to invite all my friends."
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Ashok Amritraj, CEO, Hyde ParkEntertainment:
"For many years, we used to have a party on a boat. I remember the last year the weather was so bad that I had more guests throwing up than watching the fashion show we put on, with models walking around. It may not be the happiest story, but it illustrates how unpredictable Cannes is at every turn."
Joachim Trier, director:
"My grandfather, Erik Løchen, made a small Norwegian film, 'The Chasers,' that competed in the main competition in 1960, in the same program as Antonioni, Fellini, Buñuel, Bergman -- can you imagine? And the Norwegian media and public didn't really care. So when I was there last year with 'Louder Than Bombs' and I walked up the staircase to the Grand Palais as the first co-produced Norwegian film in the main competition in 36 years, I was thinking about my grandfather, who passed away when I was 9. And now the Norwegian media cared."