A poster of My
Blueberry Nights
The 60th Cannes Film Festival will open May 16 with Wong
Kar-Wai's first English-language project, My Blueberry
Nights, also an entrant for competition, festival organizers
have announced.
This is the first Hong Kong-produced film to be invited to open
Cannes.
My Blueberry Nights tells the story of a
blueberry-pie-eating girl traveling across the vast expanses of the
United States of America, searching, like all of Wong's
protagonists, for the meaning of "love."
The film features big names from Britain and America, such as
superstar chanteuse Nora Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie
Portman, and David Strathairn.
Its production team is also a mix of Eastern and Western
talents, with American crime writer Lawrence Block as the
screenplay writer, French Darius Khondji as the cinematographer,
William Chang from Hong Kong as the production designer and editor,
as well as an American camera crew.
After the news reached him, Wong Kar-Wai said, "It is a great
honor for the film to be invited. I'm looking forward to coming
back to Cannes, to lift the curtain with my production, on the
celebration of its 60th birthday."
My Blueberry Nights is an international film
nonetheless embracing the spirit of Hong Kong film, Wong added.
Wong has been a frequent visitor to Cannes since the 1990s. He
won the Best Director prize in 1997 for the film Happy
Together. His protagonist Tony Leung was the judged Best Actor
in 2000 for In the Mood for Love. In 2006, Wong headed the
jury for the 59th Cannes festival, becoming the first Chinese jury
president in its history.
(CRI.cn April 24, 2007)
