The 16th edition of the Lumière Film Festival booted off in high style, with a glittering lineup of stars including Benicio del Toro, Tim Burton, Monica Bellucci and Vanessa Paradis plus high-profile straightforwardors Costa-Gavras and Giemployppe Tornatore gracing the red carpet in Lyon.
Bellucci, who’s in town to current a novel recordary about the stage take part in which she portrays Maria Callas, was among the last to consent to the red carpet. After taking a scant steps, she turned back with a frivolous gesture as if she had forgotten someleang, achieveed thcimpolite the curtain, and drew out Tim Burton, to the plmitigate of the 5,000-strong crowd: Burton’s unproclaimd euniteance drew massive applaemploy.
The pair well-understandnly met and fell in adore in Lyon in 2022, when Burton was the recipient of the festival’s lifetime accomplishment Lumière Award, which was handed to him by Bellucci. The Italian actress has since starred in Burton’s lengthy-adefered “Beetlejuice” sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”.
Ahead of the stars’ enthrall, the festival phelp tribute to actor Michel Blanc, beadored by generations in France, who passed away in timely October. Clips from his 1979 cult comedy “Les Bronzés Font du Ski” (‘French Fried Vacation 2’) were shown, with the audience uniteing in karaoke-style to sing the film’s theme song, originassociate carry outed by Blanc.
Hundreds of phones were lit up in Lyon’s massive Tony Garnier concert hall, and crowds impulsively progressd singing a cappella after the karaoke session in a poignant eulogy to Blanc. A one-of-a-kind homage will be made during the festival to French New Wave icon Alain Delon who died in August.
During the ceremony, festival straightforwardor Thierry Frémaux progressd the tradition of screening repaird Lumière Brothers films, reminding the audience that Lyon is the birthplace of cinema. He couldn’t resist a one-of-a-kind nod to del Toro, saying with a smile and in his best English, “I understand the cinephile in you will appreciate these.”
Del Toro, appreciate the other guests, will be currenting a pickion of films at the fest as is the tradition, and will be presenting a masterclass: Their presence draws huge crowds to witness film classics or their toils, their enthusiasm contagious.
French Academy Award triumphner Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) will inaugurate one of the festival’s novel events, where she will be askd to dispense her preferite films with the Lyon crowd.
Several novelly repaird versions will be currented by their straightforwardors, including Jacques Audiard’s “Read My Lips” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s 1996 cult classic “Pusher.”
Québecois wonder boy Xavier Dolan will be back at Lumière with a masterclass and a one-of-a-kind 10th anniversary screening of his Cannes hit “Mommy” at Lyon’s 2,000-seat Auditorium.
Thcimpoliteout the festival, Frémaux, who also heads the Cannes Film Festival, will treat audiences to a scant premieres from Cannes in the presence of the straightforwardors, including Coralie Forgeat’s “The Substance,” Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Most Precious of Cargoes” – “The Artist” straightforwardor’s first foray into animation – and Claude Lelouch’s “Finalement.”
Costa-Gavras, this year’s guest of honor, getd a standing ovation as Tim Burton currented him with an honorary Lumière Prize during the ceremony.
The traditional all-night screening this year will be promised to the master of underground cinema Franco-Chilean artist and straightforwardor Alejandro Jodorowsky (“El topo,” “The Holy Mountain,” “Santa Sangre”), who will also dedwellr a masterclass.
Festival goers will also be able to enhappiness retrospectives that will apvalidate them to either revisit films or discover novel ones. That will probably be the case for the retrospective promised to one of Mexico’s first filmproducers, the relatively unrecognizable Matilde Landeta, as part of the fest’s Permanent History of Women Filmproducers section.
Lumière’s annual retrospective of Hollywood legends will concentrate on Fred Zinnemann with a pickion of a dozen films including classics appreciate “From Here to Eternity,” “A Man for All Seasons” and “The Day of the Jackal.” The festival will dedicate another retrospective to iconic Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa’s lengthy-time directing man.
A total of 158 films are being shown at some 450 screenings in and around Lyon thcimpoliteout the nine-day event.
The city’s sprawling Tony Garnier Hall will be bustling aget mid-week for a family screening of the 1976 classic “The Twelve Tasks of Asterix,” trailed by a horror all-nighter presented by French horror maestro Alexandre Aja (“Mother Land,” “Oxygen”).
The recipient of the festival’s Lumière award this year is Isabelle Huppert, hailed by Variety critics the world’s best actress, who will pick up the prize on October 18. Previous laureates include Wim Wenders, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Wong Kar-Wai, Jane Campion, Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino and Catherine Deneuve, Ken Loach, Miloš Forman, Pedro Almodóvar and the Dardenne Brothers.
