Austrian filmmaker shows film about aging Sissi in Cannes

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the essentials in brief

• Russian director Serebrennikov shows understanding for boycott calls.

“Corsage” is one of the few German-language films to be shown at the film festival in southern France this year. Vicky Krieps from Luxembourg plays the Austrian empress, who, after her 40th birthday, begins to rebel against the beauty ideal of eternal youth.

On Thursday evening, US actress Anne Hathaway starred on the red carpet in a white dress with a bandeau bodice. She stars in James Gray’s Armageddon Time, which is about the father of former US President Donald Trump. The US actress Julia Roberts also came to the premiere, who posed in front of the photographers in a black tailcoat with eye-catching pieces of jewellery.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, the Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov showed his understanding for calls for a boycott. “I can understand why they say that, they are in a terrible situation,” he said, referring to Ukrainian filmmakers who had called for Russian films to be excluded from the festival. “It’s difficult for them to hear the Russian language, I can understand that,” he said.

However, he welcomed the stance of the festival, which had invited him as an independent filmmaker. “Do you really want to cancel Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy?” he asked, looking at the most famous Russian authors. “It’s not right to exclude people because of their nationality,” he added. Several guests wore embroidered blouses on Thursday’s red carpet in homage to Ukraine.