Tuesday, May 12, 2020

May 12 - Gavin Hood/73rd Cannes Film Festival Begins


Happy 57th Birthday, Gavin Hood! Born today in 1963, this South African actor, screenwriter, producer and film director got his start directing when commissioned to make several short educational dramas for the South African Department of Health 
  
His first commercial short film was the twenty-two-minute 1998 South African crime short film 'The Storekeeper'. 
  
In 2000, Variety magazine named Hood as one of its "Ten Directors to Watch" 

Among his credits, however, Hood is best known for writing and directing the 2005 British/South African crime/drama film 'Tsotsi'. 
  
Set in an Alexandria slum, the film tells of a South African hoodlum named Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae), who lives by a code of violence. 

He and his gang of thugs prowl the streets of Johannesburg day and night, attacking those who fail to give them what they want.  
  
After casually shooting a woman and stealing her car, he discovers her baby in the back seat. 

Instead of harming the mewling infant, he takes it home and cares for it. The child acts as a catalyst for the hardened thug to regain his humanity. 
  
The film had been adapted from South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director Athol Fugard's eponymous 1980 fiction novel. 
  
In January 2006, 'Tstosi' was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film at the 63rd Golden Globes. 

Two months later, the film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in early March.

In 2009, 'Tsotsi' was unofficially remade in Tamil language as 'Yogi'.  
  
Hood is also known for directing the 2009 American superhero action/adventure film 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine', the 2013 American military science fiction action film 'Ender's Game' and the 2015 British war/thriller film 'Eye in the Sky'. 
  
Hood has been active from 1989–present. 
  
#borntodirect 
@gavin_hood1
@xmenmovies
@FilmAfrica
@filmsSouth 
@Variety 
@empiremagazine 
@RogerEbert 
@Channel24



Today, the 73rd Cannes Film Festival officially begins! Actually, it is officially postponed due to coronavirus. 

On January 13, 2020, African-American film director, producer, writer, actor, and professor Spike Lee (‘She’s Gotta Have It’, ‘Do the Right Thing’, ‘BlacKkKlansman’) was named as the president of the jury. 

As planned, the annual festival was originally scheduled to take place from May 12-23, 2020. Cannes is the second festival of the "Big Three". 

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France, festival management announced on April 14, 2020 that the festival could not be held in its "original form", with alternative means of observing the festival being explored. 

Earlier, festival management considered holding the festival in June or July, after not cancelling the event. 

In mid-March, the festival's main venue, the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière (named after the titular French engineer and industrialist) was converted into a temporary homeless shelter.  

In May 2020, it was announced that no physical edition of the festival would take place, but a revised Official Selection of films would be confirmed in June. 

For more information and in keeping updated, please visit the website below for more information: 

https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/ 

Best of luck to the winner of the Palme d'Or...next year? 

#coronavirussucks
#CANNES2020 
#CannesFilmFesitval 
#Cannes2020 
@festivaldecannes

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