The Cannes competition program will not include the Ukrainian “Captive” due to its harshness

Today on the Cote d'Azur 68 Cannes Film Festival kicks off (on 25 May), where 17 paintings will compete for the main prize - the Golden Palm. And the jury headed by the brothers-directors Ethan and Joel Coen will choose the best of them.

But, alas, the festival will take place without Ukrainian films in competitive programs. And the victory of Myroslav Slaboshpitsky's “Tribe” last year in two nominations of the competition, on the Cote d'Azur, did not give any bonuses to Ukrainian paintings that applied for participation. For example, the same military drama "Captivity" - about torture of hostages in the war, with Vladimir Goryansky in the title role ...

“At first, the French said that it was necessary to indicate the place of the military conflict, but we would not want such anchoring. Our film is more like a parable about the war, about the metamorphosis that happens to people in inhuman conditions. And then one of the jury members, Italian Isabella Rossellini, turned the picture, because she does not like tough films at all, Anton Sladkevich, the producer of Plen, told us.

Out of the competition, nine Ukrainian short films will be shown, among which is the cartoon 15-year-old Nikita Tymoshchuk “The Island” and the mystical “Tunnel” by Viktor Bulyga, who won at the Internet author's film festival in New York - about brothers who unexpectedly meet in unfamiliar yourself place. True, local directors are unlikely to go to represent their work. “A trip to the festival in Cannes will cost at least thousands of euros at 2, which I cannot afford with the current rate,” says Bulyga.