CANNES: Fourteen years after she made history at Cannes, New Zealand director Jane Campion is again having a vintage year at the prestigious film festival.
The Australian-based director's acclaimed movie The Piano won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993 making her the first woman to win the festival's top prize. Campion has no new feature films on show at this year's festival.
But her work is featuring in a screening of Chacun son cinema to each his own cinema specially commissioned by Cannes president Gilles Jacob to celebrate the festival's 60th anniversary. Campion is one of 33 directors and the only woman invited to direct a three-minute short for the collective work, which examines moviemakers' feelings about cinema. The other directors featured also past winners at Cannes include Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Roman Polanski, Lars Von Trier and the Coen brothers.
Cannes festival-goers are also being reminded of Campion's 1993 triumph with a "movies on the beach" screening of The Piano, among other past Palme d'Or winners. Campion also pops up in a new documentary being shown at Cannes - Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient. The film about 70-year-old Rissient, a veteran producer, writer and publicist, features interviews with many of the people he worked with over the years.
Among them are Campion, film critic David Stratton, Australian director Rolf de Heer, Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone and Quentin TarantiNo In the documentary, Campion recalls how the screening of one of her entries in the short film competition at Cannes was dogged by technical problems and most of the audience walked out. But he told her: "No, no, no this is a triumph." Campion works in the pipeline include her contribution to 8 eight short films centred around eight themes directed by eight famous film directors, who share their opinion on progress and the challenges facing the planet.
Campion is also this year directing Bright Star, a drama about the romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, who is set to be played by Abbie Cornish.
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