The posters are as eagerly awaited each year as the festival itself. The Cannes Film Festival revealed today the official visual of its 69th edition and one of its best in recent years. Taken from a still from Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Le Mépris (Contempt), it is a striking allusion to the festival and what the French call "the seventh art."


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Drenched in the golden light of the Mediterranean coast, a man (played by Michel Piccoli) seems to head towards the stars as he walks up the steps, evocative of the famous red carpet leading up to the Palais des Festivals. A symbolic choice since Godard's film, which also starred Brigitte Bardot, is about the making of a film and considered as one of the finest works made in CinemaScope.

According to the Festival, "the steps represent a kind of ascension towards the infinite horizon of a movie screen." This choice also reiterates its original commitment: to pay tribute to the history of cinema and encourage new ways of creation. And Godard, one of the most influential filmmakers to ever step behind the camera, certainly brought a new vision to cinema. Last year's festival saw visionary works, from Todd Haynes' Carol and Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin to Denis Villeneuve's Sicario and Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart, premiere, whereas the line-up for this year's festival has yet to be firmed up, although news that the upcoming, anticipated drama The Light Between Oceans will almost certainly not premiere there broke earlier this morning.


The jury for the festival will be presided over this year by Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller,  and the film festival, expected to premiere the latest works from the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Nicholas Winding Refn, is set to take place May 11th to the 22nd.

Check out the official poster for the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival right below:

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