Lord of the Rings director honored as Cannes festival opens on subdued note

CANNES, France — The officially started on Tuesday night with a more muted tone than in years past, with fewer A-list Hollywood celebrities on the red carpet and politics largely absent from the opening ceremony speeches.

Elijah Wood walked the carpet ahead of presenting Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson with an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement. Others on the carpet included model Heidi Klum, legendary actor Joan Collins, and Indian film star Alia Bhatt.

, including Oscar-nominated actors Demi Moore and Stellan Skarsgård, also walked the red carpet into the plush 2,300-seat Grand Lumiere Theatre ahead of the screening of opening film The Electric Kiss, a French-language romantic comedy.

GAMBLE PAID OFF
Mr. Jackson, 64, recalled how he brought a clip from his first Rings film to Cannes 25 years ago in a bid to win over an audience skeptical of his decision to shoot the entire trilogy simultaneously. “It was a huge gamble,” he recalled.

The bet paid off, with the critically and commercially successful series winning 17 Oscars and making nearly $3 billion in revenue.

“The Palme d’Or is something I never ever thought I would win ever, because I don’t make Palme d’Or sort of films,” he said.

Mr. Wood, who was only 18 when filming on the first Rings film began, recalled that the day he heard that he got the lead role of Frodo would divide his life into a before and after.

“I’m far from the only person whose life has been changed by Peter Jackson,” he added.

LIGHT ON POLITICS
Neither Mr. Jackson nor Mr. Wood discussed politics. Last year’s recipient, , used his speech to call for protests against US President .

The only political nod came from Jane Fonda, the longtime US actor and activist, who appeared on stage with Gong Li, one of China’s best-known actors, to declare the festival officially open.

“Jane comes from the West, I come from the East. Tonight we stand together here. This is the magic of Cannes,” said Ms. Gong.

Fonda used her stage time to celebrate cinema as an act of resistance.

“I believe in the power of voices, voices on the screen, voices off the screen, and definitely voices on the street, especially now,” she said, to applause. “Let’s celebrate audacity, freedom, and the fierce act of creation.”

A LOSING BATTLE VS AI
Demi Moore, speaking ahead of the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, urged the film industry to find ways to work with and protect itself from artificial intelligence (AI), instead of fighting a losing battle against it.

“AI is here. And so to fight it is to, in a sense, to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it is a more valuable path to take,” said Ms. Moore.

The US actor, who received her first Oscar nomination for body horror The Substance after its Cannes premiere in 2024, is returning to the festival this year as one of nine members of who will hand out the Palme d’Or top prize on May 23.

“Are we doing enough to protect ourselves? I don’t know,” added Ms. Moore, speaking to journalists. “And so my inclination would be to say probably not.”

The festival does not allow generative AI in competition, but the conversation about the technology’s role in filmmaking has been a dominant theme at the festival that positions itself as a gatekeeper of what qualifies as cinema. — Reuters