Who could have guessed that the 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival would witness riots around… a tyre? This year THE buzz comes from the International Critics’ Week and more precisely from a special screening (meaning a unique screening in a 380-seat theatre = at least 500 people that won’t be admitted whatever the film is -in that case, 800 people could not get in) of the film Rubber. Was that because of its director, Quentin Dupieux aka Mr Oizo (as a famous DJ managed by Ed Banger Records)? Was that because of its main actor Robert aka… the tyre? Or was that because of the co-composer of the soundtrack Gaspar Augé aka half of the famous and glamorous French DJ duo Justice? In any case, the film has unleashed all kinds of passions because of his blatant unconventional positions (shot with a reflex camera, featuring a psychopath tyre, showing the spectators… all this without any reason…). Check out the teaser below to learn more!

Cannes Fim Festival needs a scandal film every year. This year, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist is the one -thanks to a brilliant marketing strategy from the director himself, who knows more than anyone else how to reach his audience (whether professionals or mere viewers). Lars Von Trier has indeed become a commercial brand, a sort of Harry Potter on the arthouse scale with an efficient marketing array that hits the target from production to distribution no matter his limited budget (compared with that of blockbusters’). There lies the Danish filmmaker’s very art: every new production is the chance for him to give the illusion he reinvents cinema whereas he merely savvyly creates the desire of a new cinema by manipulating clichés and references of cinema history with a remarkable sense of timing. If he wasn’t a filmmaker, Lars Von Trier would probably be a coveted advertising executive or image-maker master such as Oliviero Toscani (who designed the Benetton advertising campaigns). For those reasons, each new film by Von Trier definitely is a curiosity (much more than a joy) and a way to get in the face all the ‘dark side’ of arthouse cinema at a given time, vomited by a genius artist, to whom we should wish his thirst for challenge never ends. The film opens in Europe this month. IFC will distribute it in the United States.

Françoise Duru