Cannes Film Festival: Nicole Kidman’s film Grace of Monaco will finally premiere despite stoush

AFTER a stoush erupted over Nicole Kidman’s latest film, the Australian actor will finally get her princess moment at the Cannes Film Festival.

NICOLE Kidman will have her long-awaited princess moment when Grace of Monaco opens the 67th Cannes Film Festival.

After several delays to the film’s release and reported stoushes between its director, Oliver Dahan, and its US distributor, Harvey Weinstein, Cannes was to be the moment the speculation stopped and Grace of Monaco took centre stage.

Until the controversy erupted again just under two weeks ago, when it emerged that Weinstein is considering dumping the film’s US release altogether, unless Dahan and his producers agree to some serious re-editing or reshooting.

When the fuss around the Grace Kelly biopic does subside and the Cannes fest gets down to its real business of lavishing praise on arty films and the auteurs who make them, Kidman won’t be the only Australian in the mix. Her film will premiere Wednesday night this week, French time.

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Cannes is an invite-only festival and this year three Australian productions have made the guest list: Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country, David Michod’s long-awaited follow up to Animal Kingdom, The Rover, and, from first-time filmmaker Zak Hilditch, These Final Hours.

Writer-director de Heer is no stranger to Cannes — he’s been nominated for the festival’s most prestigious award, the Palme d’Or, twice (for The Quiet Room and Dance Me to My Song), and won a Special Jury Prize for Ten Canoes in 2006.

Filming together ... Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil have already tasted Cannes acclaim.

As with Ten Canoes, Charlie’s Country will screen in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard program, a competition showcase for unique, original films from all corners of the globe.

David Gulpilil starred in Ten Canoes; he deepens his collaboration with de Heer on Charlie’s Country by also co-writing the film, which is in some ways a commentary on contemporary government intervention in Northern Territory communities.

Gulpilil plays Charlie, an elder who fools the whitefella cops into thinking he’s a genuine tracker, but struggles to live by their laws in his remote community. He tries going back to ancient blackfella ways of living, but only creates more problems for himself.

News Corp Australia understands that Gulpilil is unable to attend Cannes; but in a statement, de Heer said he was simply glad the festival would allow his collaborator’s work to be seen: “I am so pleased for David, for all his effort to be rewarded and for the chances of his best role now being seen not just at Cannes, but around the world.”

The veteran director is not wrong about the spotlight Cannes can shine on a film: Last year, the fest threw up the first buzz about US indie Nebraska and its comeback star Bruce Dern — buzz that carried all the way to the Oscars 10 months later.

The Rover will have its world premiere at Cannes in an out of competition midnight screening.

Michod’s film making the cut at Cannes isn’t surprising; Animal Kingdom brought the filmmaker and his actors (including Ben Mendelsohn and Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver) much international cachet and he was recently tapped to helm The Operators with star and producer Brad Pitt.

Yet the bigger story around The Rover seems to be Twilight star Robert Pattinson shedding his heart-throb vampire image in a real acting piece.

Set in the Outback in a future where society has crumbled, Pattinson plays Rey, a naive gang member injured and left behind when a car robbery goes wrong. The owner of the car, Eric (Guy Pearce), forces Rey to help him track down the thieves.

These Final Hours will screen as part of Directors’ Fortnight, a non-official “sidebar” to the main Cannes festival known for encouraging emerging and cutting-edge filmmakers.

The Perth-set thriller stars Nathan Phillips as a troubled man whose plans to party hard on the day the world ends are disrupted when he saves a child (Angourie Rice) who has lost her father.

Rice was just 10 when she shot These Final Hours; now 13, the film serves as a rather stunning feature film debut for the young actor.

Writer-director Hilditch called his film’s selection “an amazing honour” — and given some pundits are describing this year’s Directors’ Fortnight line-up as stronger than the main Cannes roster, he may be onto something there.

In the Outback heat ... Guy Pearce (left) and Robert Pattinson in a scene from Australian film The Rover.

More Australian actors will be on show at Cannes via international productions. Mia Wasikowska co-stars with Pattinson in David Cronenberg’s latest oddity, Maps to the Stars. Ben Mendelsohn appears in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River. And Miranda Otto plays an insane woman for another actor-turned-director, Tommy Lee Jones, in the much-buzzed-about The Homesman.

Should any of these films win awards at the festival, they’ll have been decided upon by this year’s jury president: Australian-based Kiwi, Jane Campion.

THE ROVER OPENS IN AUSTRALIA ON JUNE 12; CHARLIE’S COUNTRY AND THESE FINAL HOURS OPEN IN JULY.

Originally published as Cannes Film Festival: Nicole Kidman’s film Grace of Monaco will finally premiere despite stoush