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Matt Arnoldi returns from the beaches of Normandy with a post-Festival report…. Introduction The 28th Festival of American Film (August 30th – September 8th 2002) proved to be a glittering success on several fronts. Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the CID Conference Centre (in which all the Gala screenings and Press Conferences take place), distributors UIP and Columbia Tri-Star happily held parties there in celebration of the European launches of films K19: The Widowmaker and XXX respectively. Celebrities Many of the stars at Deauville, are also making trips to Venice, but they receive such a warm reception in Normandy, one can see why many of them insist on making an appearance here. Tom Hanks, Sam Mendes, Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sylvestor Stallone, Asia Argento, Matt Dillon, Rob Cohen, Shakhur Kapur, Andrew Niccol, Goldie Hawn, model Rachel Roberts and Steven Soderbergh all made appearances – much to the delight of professional photographers beaming back pictures for UK outlets, who told me they thought it had been a quiet year. The location Deauville itself is style personified. Eddie Murphy, making an appearance a few years ago, said ‘it would be a wonderful place to come to on honeymoon’. He’s not wrong. Streets adorned with baskets of flowers, chic boutiques for the style conscious, the sumptuous Normandy and Royal hotels and of course the sandy beach – it really is a picture-postcard location. In many ways, Deauville is also like a film set – at night, beautifully old thatched houses built in a gothic design would suit an Addams family sequel. During the day, think The Truman Show, as music like The X-Files Club theme gets piped from speakers attached to lampposts on street corners – it can seem like a dream world at times. Awards To the prizes. Peter Sollett's Long Way Home won the Grand Jury prize from a Jury led by President Pierre Lescure and including the likes of Chantal Akerman, Irene Jacob, actor Jean-Marc Barr and Roberto Succo director Cedric Kahn. First shown at Cannes, the film is also playing in Toronto and may also get an airing in London in November on the back of its prize-winning exploits here. The film focuses on a young latino teenager (played by Victor Rasuk) who wanting experience with women, secretly begins a liaison with his plump young neighbour living upstairs. It would have faced stiff competition from Emmett’s Mark, The Good Girl and Long Island Expressway, also well received and from Blue Car which was hotly-tipped following its warm reception at Sundance. Further Special Jury prizes were awarded jointly to Michael Cuesta’s Long Island Expressway, a study of a young boy befriended by a former Nam veteran (played by Brian Cox) who we hear has a history of sexual exploits with young boys (L.I.E was given a further chance to shine here since its first airing at Sundance 2001) and to Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo, a fascinating study of a shy, lonely, supermarket photo dept worker (played beautifully by Robin Williams) who develops an obsession on a local family whose prints he regularly develops. In the competition section, audiences were given slips and afterwards invited to give star ratings out of 1-5. Again many of the titles listed above would have been in the running and again, One Hour Photo not unsurprisingly came out on top. It also won a Premiere Magazine nod, which must have delighted distributors Fox Searchlight who are also sitting on another Autumn title sure to bring in the punters, Miguel Arteta’s The Good Girl, an enjoyable drama detailing a supermarket romance between characters played by Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal. A special ‘overheard’ prize should also have been awarded to two mature French ladies witnessing the jamboree of frenzied Paparazzi clicking cameras greeting the arrival of US director Andrew Niccol and his glittering co-star from Simone. One was overheard saying to the other "She doesn’t look much like Julia Roberts to me!" – both of them, like many others, were in fact gazing at glamour model & Simone star Rachel Roberts, who afterwards thought it could only be a compliment that she had been mistook for Julia! Finally in the awards stakes, sponsors Ralph Lauren Fragrances gave their annual gong for Best Actor to Patricia Clarkson for her role in Rose Troche's The Safety Of Objects. Tributes were made in homage to Harrison Ford, Matt Dillon, Ellen Burstyn, Robert Evans and John Frankenheimer, the latter two being able to see their films The Kid stays in the picture and A Path to War being shown, whilst retrospectives were given airings for the others. Neil LaBute gave generous amounts of time to the festival, showing his new film Possession and also taking part in a seminar, which gave members of the public a unique chance to raise questions they had for him. Over 150 people took part in the session, asking questions about Possession, LaBute’s experiences as a playwright and his scriptwriter and directorial career. As the sun sets on another Deauville festival, organisers and sponsors can take pride in the fact that this is a festival that gives enjoyment to many and allows US distributors to give European airings to many of their Autumn films. As such, it has a vital niche in the annual Film Festival calendar. More on Deauville Festival of American Film
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