the (red) set*

AFTER 62 years of the Cannes Film Festival, AFTRS alumni Jane Campion is still the only woman to have won the Palme D’Or, the festival’s top award — in 1993, for The Piano and 2009 sees Campion in competition again for the same award with her latest feature project Bright Star, an Australian-British co-production starring Abbie Cornish.

Stephanie Bunbury, reporting from Cannes, wrote in the Age (on Saturday May 16):

“Last night, when at half past midnight we went to check the print, I must say I felt butterflies,” [Campion] said yesterday after the film’s first press screening. “Very excited and fearful.”

Bright Star, written and directed by Campion, is a drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, cut short by Keats’ untimely death at the age of 25.

Stephanie Bunbury went on to say: “The initial response from the film’s first audience was respectful but muted. It was only afterwards that, among the usual divisions, many critics told Campion how moving they found it.”

Bright Star is told from the character Fanny Brawne’s perspective a theme that runs through Campion’s ouevre.

“Too few films convey that kind of female experience, because there are so few women directors.” Campion says

There is only one other film directed by a woman, Fish Tank – by Andrea Arnold - in competition in Cannes.

Bright Star is competing with 21 other films in the main program of the festival. The results will be announced next Sunday May 24.

pic: Jane Campion and Abbie Cornish on the red carpet at Cannes on the weekend