When Darkness Falls - Fabulous Picture Show - Amanda Palmer
The Fabulous Picture Show

When Darkness Falls

Tales of violence, power and fear, Martin Scorsese and the Cannes Film Festival.

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Martin Scorsese

Living legend and American director Martin Scorsese was the special guest in Cannes this year to celebrate the 60th birthday of the ‘Granddaddy of film festivals’.

Having won Cannes’ top prize, the Palme d’Or in 1976 for Taxi Driver, Scorsese returned to launch The World Cinema Foundation, which is committed to the preservation and restoration of what he calls “neglected films”.

FPS‘s Amanda Palmer attended Scorsese’s 90 minute masterclass before meeting the Oscar winning filmmaker to talk about his continuing obsession with filmmaking and how he passionately believes world cinema can promote cultural awareness, and help bring about understanding and peace.
 
Whilst Scorsese was amongst Cannes’ highlights, the festival’s film lineup was voted by critics as one of the strongest in recent years. 1000 international films are shown during the 12 day movie marathon festival, but only 22 are in competition. Amongst this years competition winners: The coveted Palme d’Or went to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a small budget Romanian drama about illegal abortions in communist-era Romania. Romanian director Cristian Mungiu beat better known rivals and former Palme d’Or winners such as the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant and Quentin Tarantino.

Incidentally, Mungiu’s film also won the International Critics Prize given by the jury of the FIPRESCI, the global federation of film critics. Cannes runner up prize, the Grand Prix went to The Mourning Forest, a spiritual tale of two grief-stricken people, by Japanese director Naomi Kawase. The Jury prize was shared between Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the French-Iranian debut director’s autobiographical animation about life under the ayatollahs, and Silent Light, a film about adultery, love and faith set in Mennonite community in Mexico.

American director Gus Vant Sant received the Special 60th Anniversary prize for his film Paranoid Park, and the best script was awarded to German-born Turkish director Fatih Akin for his film The Edge of Heaven, for his film’s power in “portraying a tragedy about two families bridging the East-West divide”.

SPECIAL SCREENING – WHEN DARKNESS FALLSs

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Swedish director Anders Nilsson
Swedish director Anders Nilsson has made his name with blockbuster police thrillers, but his latest feature When Darkness Falls (När mörkret faller) presents a dramatic change in perspective – from law-enforcer to victim.
 
The film, which won the Amnesty International Film Award at this year’s Berlinale Film Festival, portrays three brutal stories of violence, power and fear.

Nilsson became fascinated with what he describes as the ultimate horror, “the worst possible thing in reality and in film” – an attack by those who are supposed to protect you. The three stories, which feature an honour killing, a case of domestic violence and an attack by local criminals, flow entirely separately through the film. But together they are a formidable social statement on the brutality which goes on behind closed doors, even in one of the most ‘civilised’ countries in the world.

As special guest on this week’s FPS, Nilsson talks to the audience about why he chose this new direction, and the true life events that inspired the film.

CANNES BLAGGERS

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Blaggers’ Paradise at Cannes

How do a duo of aspiring filmmakers with no track record and no contacts fight their way through 30,000 other attendees at the Cannes Film Festival, to meet the people who can change their fortunes?

The Fabulous Picture Show meets Rolf and Nick, two directors looking to fund their short films. Whilst meeting powerful producers and blagging their ways into parties, they film their efforts for a revealing behind-the-scenes documentary, Cannes Confidential. But are they really gathering material for the doc?

 
This edition of The Fabulous Picture Show will air at the following times GMT:
Saturday 26th May 14:30, 2230; Sunday 27th May 02:30, 12:30; Monday 28th May 07:30; Tuesday 29th May 07:00, 13:30; Wednesday 30th May 00:30, 11:30, 2030; Thursday 31st May 05:30, 19:30; Friday 1st June 03:00, 16:30; Saturday 2nd June 06:30
 
Watch this episode of The Fabulous Picture Show here:
 
Part 1:
 
 
Part 2:
 



 
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