Beneath intermittent rainy skies, the Cannes Film Festival opened Tuesday night with the presentation of an honorary Palme d’Or for Meryl Streep and the unveiling of Greta Gerwig’s jury, as the French Riviera spectacular kicked off a potentially volatile 77th edition.
A 10-day stream of stars began flowing down the Cannes’ red carpet with the opening night film, “The Second Act,” a French comedy starring Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphaël Quenard. They play squabbling actors filming a movie directed by an artificial intelligence.
The festival’s first lengthy standing ovation, though, went to Streep, who was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or during Tuesday’s opening ceremony. After Juliette Binoche introduced her, Streep alternatively shook her head, fanned herself and danced while the crowd thunderously cheered.
“I’m just so grateful that you haven’t gotten sick of my face,” Streep, 74, joked to the audience as she received her honorary Palme d’Or from French actor Juliette Binoche.
Coppola’s decades-in-the-making epic “Megalopolis”, an Ancient Rome-inspired saga set in a corrupt modern-day city, is the most anticipated of 22 entries for the top prize Palme d’Or, facing a jury led by “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig.
“This is holy to me. Films are sacred and I cannot believe that I’m getting the opportunity to spend the next 10 days in this house of worship,” an emotional Gerwig told the audience.
Other entries include recent Oscar-winner Emma Stone reuniting with Yorgos Lanthimos for “Kinds of Kindness”, Demi Moore trying her hand at horror in “The Substance”, and Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s “Oh Canada”.
Outside the race for the Palme d’Or, George Miller’s latest “Mad Max” instalment, “Furiosa”, were premiered on Wednesday, while Kevin Costner returns to the Western genre with “Horizon, an American Saga”.
Streep has only been to Cannes once before in 1989, when she won best actress for “A Cry in the Dark”.
“Thirty-five years ago when I was here last time, I was already a mother of three, I was about to turn 40 and I thought that my career was over. And that was not an unrealistic expectation for actresses at that time,” she said.
With France’s film industry in the midst of a renewed #MeToo reckoning, Binoche was among 100 stars calling for a comprehensive new law to crack down on “systemic” sexism and gender-based violence in an open letter Tuesday.
The host of the opening ceremony, Camille Cottin, star of hit series “Call My Agent!” and an outspoken feminist, also took digs at the “biggest bad guy of all time: the patriarchy”.
“The late-night work meetings in hotel rooms of all-powerful gentlemen are no longer part of the Cannes vortex,” she said.
Gerwig earlier told reporters she was optimistic about the progress made by women in cinema.
“It’s not a destination we all reach together, it’s something we will keep discussing and figuring out how we want our industry and cinema to be,” she said.
As the festival opened, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof announced he had escaped in secret from his country, just days after being sentenced to eight years in prison on security offences.
(From L) Members of the Jury of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, US actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, US director and president of the Jury of the 77th Cannes Film Festival Greta Gerwig, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki and Turkish writer and photographer Ebru Ceylan pose during a photocall of the Jury of the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Other entries for the Palme d’Or include Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice”, and “Emilia Perez”, an unlikely-sounding musical about a Mexican cartel boss having a sex change from previous Cannes winner Jacques Audiard.
Playing out of competition is “She’s Got No Name”, one of China’s biggest-ever productions, which features megastar Ziyi Zhang tackling the sensitive topic of women’s rights.
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