CANNES, May 24 (Reuters) – Actors and directors gathered for
the world’s leading movie showcase in Cannes this week said
television was increasingly luring top talent and should no
longer be seen as artistically inferior to the big screen.

TV series like “The Wire,” “Homeland”, “Mad Men,” “The
Sopranos” and “Game of Thrones”, which have won critical and
commercial success, were cited for breaking down the division
between movies and TV, giving audiences innovative viewing.

CANNES (Reuters) – A trip to space with Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio raised 1.2 million euros ($1.5 million) for charity at a glitzy fundraiser at the Cannes film festival on Thursday.

At the 20th annual event organized by amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, DiCaprio emerged as the mystery guest to accompany the winner on a Virgin Galactic flight into space.

CANNES, May 23 (Reuters) – Veteran comedian-actor Jerry
Lewis plays a dramatic role in his first movie in 18 years, “Max
Rose”, which is premiering at the Cannes film festival, but
showed on Thursday he had lost none of his talent for playing
the clown.

Lewis, 87, laughed his way through a news conference at the
world’s top cinema showcase with non-stop one-liners about how
much he was paid for “Max Rose”, his career’s ups and downs and
his former partner Dean Martin, who died in 1995.

CANNES (Reuters) – An ultra-violent thriller set in the Bangkok underworld of brothels and fight clubs came under attack at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday for its bloodletting which Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn defended as art.

“Only God Forgives” by Refn, who won the best director award at Cannes two years ago, is the story of Julian, an American fugitive played by Canadian Ryan Gosling, who runs a boxing club in the Thai capital as a front for a drug business.

CANNES, May 21 (Reuters) – The relationship between the
flamboyant pianist Liberace and his young lover dazzled at the
Cannes film festival on Tuesday and threw the spotlight on gay
rights at the movie industry’s largest annual gathering.

Director Steven Soderbergh said he struggled five years ago
to secure funding for “Behind the Candelabra” because some
financiers thought the film would only appeal to a gay audience
and, at a cost of $25 million, would be a financial risk.

CANNES (Reuters) – A tragic love story between two Palestinians living under Israeli occupation received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on Monday and broke new ground as the first film fully funded by the Palestinian cinema industry.

“Omar” by director Hany Abu-Assad, known for the 2005 award-winning film “Paradise Now”, is a political thriller interwoven with a story of trust and betrayal as two lovers are torn apart by Israel’s secret police and Palestinian freedom fighters.

CANNES, May 20 (Reuters) – British film production company
Pinewood Shepperton is to go to the national government
with its bid to double the size of its main studio, the home of
James Bond, after local authorities rejected its expansion plans
twice.

Ivan Dunleavy, chief executive of Pinewood which is Europe’s
largest film studio, said it was disappointing the local council
rejected its 200 million pound ($300 million) plan for a second
time last week as it needed more capacity to meet rising demand.

CANNES (Reuters) – Film stars come to Cannes to promote themselves and their projects – so where better to launch a wry documentary bemoaning the seeming dominance of celebrity pulling-power over content?

With parties, pitching and paparazzi already in overdrive at the world’s premier movie market, director James Toback on Sunday showed “Seduced and Abandoned”, the story of how he and actor Alec Baldwin talked to directors, investors and studio heads at Cannes last year to seek funding for a film with no A-list star.

CANNES, May 19 (Reuters) – Indian movie actors and a new
wave of directors are on a mission at the Cannes film festival -
to show that their industry, which turns 100 this year, is more
than just Bollywood.

The largest Indian contingent to date is on the French
Riviera at the world’s leading cinema showcase to promote their
country, which has the world’s biggest film industry, making
over 1,000 films a year compared to about 600 in Hollywood.

CANNES, May 18 (Reuters) – Native American actress Misty
Upham never dreamt she would be walking the red carpet at Cannes
to showcase a film shot on her reservation.

Upham features in “Jimmy P. Psychotherapy of a Plains
Indian”, focused on the relationship between World War Two
veteran Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot, and Georges
Devereux, his psychoanalyst.