Festival de Cannes Day 8
«The Conquest» by Xavier Durringer (Out of Competition)
May 6, 2007. France’s run-up to the presidential elections. As the French people are getting ready to go to the polls to elect their new president, Nicolas Sarkozy has shut himself away in his home. Even though he knows he has won the battle, he is gloomy and looks despondent in his dressing gown. All day long, he has been trying to get in touch with Cécilia – to no avail. The last five years unfurl before our eyes, recounting Sarkozy’s unstoppable ascent, riddled with backstage underhand trickery, fits of anger and confrontations. The Conquest is the story of a man gaining power and losing his wife. With a casting amazing of resemblance and inspired by real events, the film shows a ferociously ambitious politician but with moving facets when it comes to being rejected by a wife he is loving.
The CST looks after the quality of the screenings
The quality of the Festival de Cannes screenings are under the supervision of the Commission Supérieure Technique de l'Image et du Son (CST). Founded in 1944, to participate in the reconstruction of French cinema and promoting the transition from black and white to color, the Technical High Commission for Image and Sound is a non-profit organization bringing together film, audiovisual and multimedia professionals. Recognized expert and independent from the trade, it is a representative and collective organism designated by the profession and the legal world. The association controls and defends the quality of images and sounds from their capture to their exploitation and dissemination, based on the knowhow of those federated by that same ambition.
The action of the CST is exerted on the following main lines: systems intelligence, controls, tests and assessments, research and development, recommendations, standards, guidance, technical assistance, training evaluation, training trainers and professional upgrades, opportunity and prospective studies, and information exchanges.
The projection installations at the Palais des Festivals during the Festival de Cannes are jealously protected and nobody is authorized take a picture of them.
In Cannes the CST organizes the «Prix Vulcain de l'Artiste Technicien» (Technician Artist Award) that rewards a technician for its collaborative work to create a film. The Prix Vulcain de l'Artiste Technicien is a prize of the Festival de Cannes concerning a film in the official competition. It is awarded by a special jury appointed by the CST.
(Picture : the Trophy)
«Pater» Press Conference
The Silence Festival
During the Festival de Cannes, among many beautiful and high profile events, the Festival du Silence detonated by its originality, because for the first time, the Cistercian monks of the Abbey of Lerins opened their doors to a few "peoples' being believers. Among those who have dared to venture, the actor Michael Londasle and Monseigneur Di Falco in the event of extraordinary devotion. On the return to this 3 hours meditation and 15 minutes boat ride round trip, the two personalities gave a press conference to tell their arrival, their site visit, their prayer and their meals in silence shared with the monks. Michael Lonsdale, very moving last year in the film "Men and Gods" and regular visitor to monasteries, confessed that in this world of sequins and turbulences, a return to true valuesis sometimes necessary in the life of a man.
«The Conquest» Red Carpet
