CANNES-CANNES: The red carpet race is on.
Dior ambassador Marion Cotillard and fellow French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, a close friend of Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière who also attended the Saint Laurent show in March decked out in bodycon creations by Anthony Vaccarello, will be the stars of the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival in May.
They are the female leads of Arnaud Desplechin’s “Ismael’s Ghosts,” which will kick off the 70th edition of the festival. The movie’s potentially downbeat storyline centers around a widowed film director whose life is sent into a tailspin when his former lover returns from the dead.
Unveiling the official lineup at a press conference on Thursday, Thierry Frémaux, the event’s artistic director, said the festival will be taking place in a “historic context for France,” falling “just days after an event that is playing out like a thriller,” referring to the country’s presidential elections.
“The festival will be suspended in time,” he added. “Let’s just hope that in the meantime, the situation with Syria and North Korea will not cast a shadow over this event that we hope will be a stable and festive moment.”
Nicole Kidman is also set to get some red carpet mileage with two films —
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