Binoche, de Niro, DiCaprio, Tarantino… a 2025 rod opening ceremony engaged and moving

Mylène Farmer also caused a sensation by paying tribute in song to David Lynch.

Obliged passage, the opening ceremony is rarely one of the highlights of Cannes Film Festival. Except that she changes in the annoying, like last year with the endless speech of Juliette Binoche introducing the palm of gold of honor of Meryl Streep and the takeover of David Bowie by Zaho de Sagazan welcomed by the polite smile of Greta Gerwig.

This year, we will have a hard time playing the joy flaps. The kick -off of the 78th Cannes Festival was a frank success, placed under the sign of commitment and emotion. Artists are often criticized for not staying in their place, as Ricky Gervais had done in a memorable way during the Golden Globes 2020. But in these troubled times, can the cinema world remain silent and be content to entertain the public?

It was the heart of the speech of the master of ceremonies, Laurent Lafitte, very sober, eager to catch up with his bad joke on Polanski in 2016. The actor has paid tribute to Emilie DEQUENNE, disappeared on March 16, as well as to actors and actresses who dare to speak, punctuating her intervention by a city of Franck Capra: “Only daring should make cinema“.

The evening did not leave this tone and this theme. Juliette Binoche, president of the jury, took advantage of her gallery to salute the memory of the Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, killed in April by an Israeli bombardment in Gaza with ten family members. She is at the center of a documentary, Put your soul on your hand and walk, presented at ACID. “The day before her death she had learned that the film in which she appeared was selected in Cannes. She should be here“, Has deplored the French star.

The emotion then reached his climax with Mylène Farmer’s song in tribute to her friend David Lynch who made Juliette Armanet cry with her heartbreaking chorus (“Everywhere it’s crazy I feel you near me“). Mylène Farmer was a long -standing fan of Lynch, and the latter had attended one of his concerts in 2006. And he had even agreed to remix” I give you your love in 2024 “, before his death.

The tension is barely subsided with the palm of gold of honor of Niro delivered by Leonardo DiCaprio. He praised his mentor, who had chosen him to play his steps in Secret injuries Before advising Martin Scorsese to work with him. And remember how much he had influenced his peers. “”For the actors my generation he has always been a model, he was our idol, we followed him, we observed how he immersed himself in his characters“.

The sacred monster then arrived on stage. Then, after an endless standing ovation, he made a declaration of love in Cannes, which punctuated so many crucial steps in his career and inspired the Tribeca festival to him, before delivering a committed speech, without ever quoting the elephant in the room, Donald Trump.

“”In my country we fight to defend democracy, it concerns us all, art is in essence democratic and inclusive (…) We are a threat to the autocrats and the fascists of this world (…) We cannot put a customs tariff on creativity, we must act without violence with passion“, hammered Bob before concluding with the French motto: freedom, equality and fraternity.

Fortunately, Quentin Tarantino, passing through films at Cannes Classics, came to complete the ceremony on a lighter note, and remind us that we were also there for the cinema, announcing the opening of the Cannes Festival in its inimitable style.