The Cannes Film Festival Blog

Right on time for Oscar night, we publish excerpts from a master class “Best Actor” nominee Colin Firth held at the 2010 Taormina Film Festival in Italy, having just finished the work on “The King’s Speech”. The film nominated for a whopping total of eleven Oscar’s - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction - and won the two most important ones - Best Picture and Best Actor for Colin Firth. Firth talked about his work with Directors in general and Tom Ford in particular, the English Class system, his view of Hollywood, his humanitarian work and how he feels about making “Mamma Mia” On Directors How do you respond best to a director? Colin Firth: There is no absolute manual on how to direct a film. It's and extremely unpredictable human process, a combination of human beings. There are of course techniques, ...

"Midnight in Paris" will be the opening film of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. A romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen, the movie features former super-model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of the French president, in her first movie role. When asked about her motivations, Bruni explained: "I'd like to, when I'm a grandmother, to have done a Woody Allen film." The movie also stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, French Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, and Gad Elmaleh. This is the second time in the last ten years that the Cannes Film Festival will open with a Woody Allen movie ("Hollywood Ending" opened the 2002 Cannes Film Festival).While somewhat out of favor in his home country, the US director has become a Cannes Film Festival program regular. Many of his recent films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in recent years, including some of the stronger ones such as "Match Point" and "Vicky, Cristina, Barc...