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Culture 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 (tel: (04) 9298 6277 or SEMEC (tel: (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 (tel: (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 (tel: (04) 9343 8626) and the smaller theatre Alexandre III, 19 boulevard Alexandre III (tel: (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 (tel: (04) 9306 7979; fax: (04) 9306 7978), prepares seven- 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 (website: www.festival-cannes.fr) 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, ten 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 (tel: (04) 9339 0098 or (08) 3668 0039), Olympia, 16 rue de la Pompe (tel: (04) 9339 1393 or (08) 3668 0029), and Studio 13, 23 avenue du Dr Picaud (tel: (04) 9306 2990). Salle Raimu, avenue de la Borde (tel: (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.’ |
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