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PARIS, Feb 23 (AFP) – The Cannes Film Festival, the main international showcase for movies, is to completely overhaul this year’s closing awards ceremony to create a spectacular climax on the weekend of May 22-23, the organisers said Monday.
Fireworks, a concert, an all-night screening of all the winners and a preview of a special mystery film have been added to spruce up the two-week event on the French Riviera, which started in 1946.
The awards ceremony itself has been moved forward from Sunday to Saturday, and will be followed by a day dedicated exclusively to the winner of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, the organisers said in a statement.
The aim of the changes was to “lift the end of the event,” it said.
It also seemed to be an attempt to resuscitate the glamour of the festival, whose closing ceremony had up to now done little to cater to the demands of live television.
The much glitzier Oscars ceremony, to be held on Sunday, has regularly trumped Cannes in the broadcast stakes, and left the French event looking a little dated.
This year’s Cannes Film Festival has invited US director Quentin Tarantino to preside over the jury which will select one of around two dozen films for the Palme d’Or and announce the prizes.
© AFP
Subject: France news