On Tuesday, a reporter stood up during a press conference and asked Cannes Film Festival’s nine-member jury, “Why do movies still matter?”
In response, jury president Cate Blanchett muttered to co-panelists Lea Seydoux and Kristen Stewart, “Actresses, don’t answer that because you have no idea how to answer that.”
It was said in nervous jest because it’s one of those uncomfortable questions whose fate rests in the answer. Depending on the reply, it can either be a deeply illuminating and inspiring question, or simply a hackneyed bore.
At Cannes, which holds dear its reputation as the “world’s most prestigious film festival”, they pick movies that often provide a lucid, exhilarating answer to that reporter’s question.
Films matter, it tries to say with each screening.
Because films allow people to tell their stories to their own people and to strangers – stories that go beyond news headlines, stories that sometimes governments don’t want people to tell, stories from a far away world that are often uncannily similar to ours, stories that add a touch of humanity to our view of the other. Stories that touch us, shape us, energise us.