Cannes, 5/15.

By David Hudson on 05/15/2009

"Reports from the Lost Continent of Cinephilia," reads the tagline (or subtitle?) of Dave Kehr's site. If that continent wasn't found today, it was certainly founded. "Making a powerful statement in support of international cinema, Martin Scorsese stepped into the spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival this afternoon to launch an array of partnerships and news aimed and preserving and promoting films from around the world," reports indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez. "Kent Jones is joining Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation as its new executive director as the organization announced alliances with Criterion, The Auteurs and B-Side to support international cinema."

Meantime, in the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab has a good long talk with Scorsese about "The Red Shoes." Anne McElvoy talks with him, too, for the Daily Beast.

"From 'MASH' to 'Wild at Heart' to 'Dancer in the Dark,' Cannes loves visions of American that come dressed as the sick soul of suburban social and sexual rot," writes Karina Longworth at FilmInFocus, "films that acknowledge real-world events only when they serve as a convenient catalyst for a vision of the American character marked by self-delusion and a theatrical self-indulgence, the dealing with life and death alike with a swagger and cocky smile. Perhaps above all else, Cannes seems to love American movie-movies, those that riff on the idea that American values and identity are both sourced from moving images, and reflected with distortion back onto the screen."

"Moustaches, miners, and anti-industry terrorism: we have our first masterpiece from Cannes," announces Daniel Kasman in The Auteurs' Notebook. "Martin Ritt's 1970 'The Molly Maguires,' a breath of 'There Will Be Blood' but focusing not on an individual character but individual ethics, shows the America of 1876 (or '70?) as a police state of industrial oppression."

"As is my custom, I fell into a deep and dreamless slumber after arriving at the Hotel Splendid from the overnight flights," blogs Roger Ebert. "I was awakened two hours later by Chaz: 'Pierre Rissient is downstairs!' If Barack Obama had been downstairs, I would have rolled over and buried my head in the pillow. But Pierre!"

"French filmmaker Anne Aghion's 'My Neighbor, My Killer' is far from being the conventional hunk of 'Never Again' piety you might expect," writes Tom Carson for GQ. "Unlike most 20th-century mass murder, the Rwandan genocide was, above all, intimate, with not only neighbors but family members turning executioners during the killing spree.... As a result, what we see in 'My Neighbor...' feels less like a condemnation - that's a given - than scenes from a great, troubling play about the (bloodsoaked) ties that bind." More from More from Peter Brunette in the Hollywood Reporter.

"Demonstrating an unusually united front, and in perhaps the gloomiest mood ever, filmmakers, investors and even festival organizers are painting an epic picture of crisis in the film industry," writes Wolfgang Höbel in Der Spiegel. "Auteur cinema, which - thanks partly to his festival - has been considered visionary and demanding by artists and intellectuals the world over, does appear to be threatened with extinction. Of course, auteur films are still being made today and a handful of young directors are certainly emulating the old masters. But hardly anyone is interested anymore." Of course, as some have already noted, Höbel's full of it.

Matt Singer snaps pix.

Online browsing tip. A Guardian photo gallery: "The movies being flogged at the Marché."

Online viewing tip. The Guardian's Xan Brooks "visits the national pavilions at the Cannes film festival's international village to find out which is the greatest film to come out of each country and ends up at an open-air screening on the beach."

[Photo: "The Molly Maguires," Paramount Pictures, 1970]

Tags: Anne Aghion, Cannes 2009, Martin Ritt, Martin Scorsese, Pierre Rissient, Roger Ebert