Official poster of the 76th Festival de Cannes 60x80 cm

Côte d'Azur, June 1, 1968.

The actress Catherine Deneuve is on the beach of Pampelonne, near Saint-Tropez, for the shooting of La Chamade by Alain Cavalier, adapted from the novel by Françoise Sagan. She plays Lucile who leads a worldly and superficial life, tinged with ease and a taste for luxury. Her heart beats frantically, hurriedly, passionately. Like that of the love of cinema that Festival de Cannes celebrates every year: you can hear its lively and inhabited pulsations everywhere. The heart of the 7th Art, of its artists, of its professionals, of its amateurs, of the press beats the chamade, to the rhythm of the urgency that imposes its eternity.

The actress of Peau d'Âne is an incarnation of cinema, far from conventions and conveniences. Without concession but always close to her convictions, even if it means going against the grain of the times. She is the muse of Jacques Demy to Agnès Varda or Luis Buñuel, of François Truffaut to Marco Ferreri or Manoel de Oliveira, of André Téchiné to Emmanuelle Bercot or Arnaud Desplechin. His collaborations are in the pantheon of immense filmmakers of yesterday and today. Catherine is the link between them. For more than 60 years, the greatest French star has never stopped shooting, reinventing herself, experimenting, daring to do counter jobs or first films. An icon who has never stood still and makes her art alive. Deneuve embodies in her own way the richness of the cinema that the Festival wants to defend: auteur films but also quality popular films.

Four years before 1968, Catherine Deneuve radiates The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by Jacques Demy, which won the Palme d'Or in 1964. The following year, Repulsion by Roman Polanski won the Silver Bear in Berlin. This was followed by La Vie de château by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort by Jacques Demy and Belle de jour by Luis Buñuel.

From then on, it will be a path of glory, strewn with masterpieces and commitments that will shape the portrait of a star to that of a woman of convictions. For Catherine Deneuve is also the co-signatory, in 1971, of the "Manifesto of the 343" calling for the legalization of abortion or, in 2018, of a collective text in which a hundred women reject, on the other hand, "puritanism, denunciation and any expeditious justice.

Catherine Deneuve is also the star of Indochine by Régis Wargnier which remains, to this day, the last French winner, in 1993, of the Oscar for best international film. In 1994, she was Vice President of the Jury for Clint Eastwood's Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino. In 2000, Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier is the second Palme d'Or in her filmography. She also received in 2005 a Palme d'honneur and in 2008, under the presidency of Sean Penn, the Special Prize of the 61st Festival for his entire career. In 2016, Catherine Deneuve is the winner of the Prix Lumière which she dedicates "to the farmers", surprising once again.

Joyful, insolent and romantic, a young woman with long blond hair smiles, confidently, at her future. It is a certain magic that Catherine Deneuve embodies, pure, incandescent and sometimes transgressive. It is this unspeakable magic that the 76th International Film Festival resonates with this timeless poster. To reiterate the glorious present of cinema and to envisage its future full of promise. For Catherine Deneuve is what cinema must remember to be: elusive, daring, irreverent. An obviousness. A necessity.

The official poster of the 76th edition of Festival de Cannes was created by Hartland Villa (Lionel Avignon, Stefan de Vivies) from a photo of Jack Garofalo on the set of La Chamade, a film directed by Alain Cavalier with Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli and Roger van Hool.

Poster credit: Photo © Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Scoop - Graphic design © Hartland Villa