Cannes Film Festival 2021: director Spike Lee, president of the jury, in the spotlight

Published on : 06/17/2021 – 15:53

It is an iconic portrait that was chosen for the poster for the 2021 edition of the Cannes Film Festival: the face of American director Spike Lee, president of the jury for the 74th edition.

Praising a “curious look”, “personal” ‘tender “and” mischievous “, the Festival has chosen to highlight the director in the guise of the character he had played in his first feature film” Nola Darling in does as it likes “(1986).

On the poster, Spike Lee, alias Mars Blackmon (one of Nola Darling’s three lovers) is surrounded by two palm trees, echoing the city of Cannes and its famous Croisette. The organizers thumbed their noses at the film having been shot in his hometown of New York.

“Because the impatience is immense to find the Cannes decor: the seaside, the palm trees and the black screen which will host the films of the Official Selection as a blank page”, write the organizers in a press release. Presented at the Directors’ Fortnight, “Nola Darling does as she pleases” won the Youth Prize in the foreign film category at Cannes in 1986.

A quirky festival

The Festival, postponed from July 6 to 17 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has yet to announce the film that will be screened during the “last screening” after the prize list as well as the composition of the jury, chaired by Spike Lee.

Maverick filmmaker and first black artist to hold this position, Spike Lee won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2018 with “Blackkklansman”, on a black police officer infiltrated into the Ku Klux Klan. He then signed his return to the Croisette, after 27 years of absence. The film then won him the very first Oscar of his career.

With AFP