Cannes 'can't hang on' for film fest after 'horrible' year

The five-star palace hotels are completely swing, the sound of music drifts over the beach and after a 'horrible' year blighted by the coronavirus crisis, the French resort of Cannes is finally buzzing again since it gears up because of its film festival.

"We can't hang on," said Pierrick Cizeron, leader at the Majestic hotel that overlooks the Mediterranean and the event venue.

Last year the film festival, the world's major, was cancelled because of the pandemic.

With France gradually emerging from a partial lockdown, the 2021 edition was delayed from the usual May date to July 6-17.

The festival is to announce its lineup of Palme d'Or contenders on Thursday, with industry insiders speculating on a pick abundant with big names.

It is, however, even now unclear how many stars will actually make the journey to Cannes, seeing that France even so requires non-EU arrivals to quarantine and there is absolutely no sign so far that the government might waive that requirement of the prestigious event.

If all goes according to plan, screening venues will be operating at full capacity, but a health move or a poor PCR test could be required at the entranceway.

Three films already are confirmed for the selection vying for Cannes's top prize.

They are "The French Dispatch" by the American director Wes Anderson -- featuring a star-studded cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Timothee Chalamet, Adrien Brody, Benicio del Toro and Saoirse Ronan -- which follows events at the French foreign news bureau of a Kansas newspaper occur a fictitious 20th-century French city.

Another is "Annette," a good musical film scheduled to start the event, by Frenchman Leos Carax starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver, with the veteran pop duo Sparks contributing the score and, found in collaboration with Carax, the screenplay.

The 3rd is "Benedetta" by Dutchman Paul Verhoeven -- well-known for "Basic Instinct" -- about the life of a novice nun in the 17th century who includes a love affair with an other woman.

Italian director and Palme d'Or winner Nanni Moretti's latest film "Tre Piani" will also very likely get the nod.

Many Cannes-watchers likewise have Joel Coen with "Macbeth" starring Denzel Washington on the set of possibles, and "THE ENERGY of the Dog" by Jane Campion, who on 1993 became the primary woman to take the Palme d'Or with "The Piano."

At the last Cannes festival in 2019, the very best award went to South Korean film "Parasite" by Bong Joon-ho, which afterwards became the initially film not really in English to win an Oscar.

You will find a chance that the latest instalment of the James Bond series "VIRTUALLY NO TIME to Die" as well gets a Cannes showing but, as is the tradition for blockbusters, probably beyond your competition.

The event usually pulls in 40,000 people a day -- a number apt to be cut in half this year due to Covid -- and makes up about a fifth of an entire year's hotel turnover in the French resort.

After staff were kept "heartbroken" by last year's cancellation, the landmark Martinez hotel now could be recruiting 250 staff for the season, its director Yann Gillet said.

The motion picture extravaganza "is a genuine travelling force and punctuates our year," he said. "Often clients come to check out us and have if it really was Brad Pitt's area."

But bookings overall are still slow. "We are just ten percent full in June and 25 percent in July," said Cannes hotel union head Christine Welter.

"It's an urgent opportunity for people to come quickly to the festival because in normal times it could be confusing," Welter said, as room rates usually obtain big mark-ups through the festival.

In the expensive shop windows along the seafront Croisette, handbags, dresses and shoes await visitors with funds to spend.

The festival "puts a rocket in our sales," said 42-year-old Olivier Zambrana, who works at a Jimmy Choo boutique.

He'd usually buy found in double stocks for cashed-up festival-goers, but also for now, he says, the shop will delay and observe how things go.

At Giry, the caterer for the festival in the last 50 years, business is slowly picking right up.

In his office, with the majority of the staff still on furlough, Luc Guibout is documenting his first orders in a year.

"There is no big bang nonetheless it feels as though things are needs to start again," he said, after what he referred to as a "horrible" year. -- AFP