The 78th Cannes International Film Festival officially kicked off on Tuesday evening with an out-of-competition gala screening of Partir un jour (“One Day We’ll Leave”), the debut — and musical — feature film by French director Amélie Bonnin.
At the opening ceremony, Oscar-winning American actor Robert De Niro was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or.
The 81-year-old star — a regular guest of the festival — received the accolade from Leonardo DiCaprio. The two actors played the lead roles in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
“It’s a great honor to be here (…) to pay tribute to the man who has been a role model and an idol to an entire generation of actors: Robert De Niro,”
said Leonardo DiCaprio in his tribute speech.
“Robert De Niro’s impact isn’t just in the roles he’s played, but in how he inspired actors to view our craft not merely as performance, but as transformation,” he added.
“I grew up in Los Angeles, and like every young actor, we followed his every move, trying to understand how he could so completely immerse himself in his characters,” DiCaprio emphasized.
“He wasn’t just another great actor — he was the actor,” he concluded.
Robert De Niro, who received a standing ovation lasting several minutes, used his acceptance speech to call for the defense of democracy.
“In the United States, we are fighting hard to protect democracy, something we’ve always taken for granted,” he said.
“Art is inclusive. It brings people together — like tonight. Art strives for freedom. It embraces diversity. That’s why art is in danger! That’s why we are a threat to the world’s autocrats and fascists,” he added.
“The ignorant American president (…) simply cut funding for the humanities and higher education — and now he announces a 100% tariff on films produced outside the U.S. This is unacceptable (…) and this isn’t just an American issue; it’s a global one,”
De Niro said, urging that “we must act now — nonviolently, but with passion and determination.”
The festival was officially opened by American director Quentin Tarantino, whose film Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or in 1994.
Before the American stars took the stage, the international jury president, French actress Juliette Binoche, paid tribute to Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed by a rocket strike in Gaza in mid-April — just days after a documentary she contributed to was invited to one of Cannes’ parallel sections.
“Fatima should have been with us this evening. But art endures. It testifies powerfully to our lives and our dreams,”
said Binoche in her opening remarks.
She also remembered the “hostages taken on October 7 (in Israel), and all hostages, prisoners, and those who drowned — people who are suffering horrors and dying in the terrifying isolation of abandonment.”
“War, poverty, climate change, ancient misogyny, and the demons of our barbarism give us no peace,” Binoche said.
“In the face of the storm’s vastness, we must cultivate gentleness, transform our thinking, heal our ignorance, release our fears and selfishness — we must change direction,” she added.
On the day of the opening ceremony, nearly 400 filmmakers and artists — including Pedro Almodóvar, Ralph Fiennes, Susan Sarandon, and Richard Gere — signed an opinion piece published in the left-leaning Libération newspaper titled “The horror in Gaza cannot be silenced in Cannes.”
“We, artists and cultural figures, cannot remain silent while genocide is unfolding in Gaza,”
the statement read, also paying tribute to Fatima Hassouna.
The festival also expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people by programming three documentaries related to Ukraine on its opening day.
These included:
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A French portrait film on President Volodymyr Zelensky
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A documentary shot on the Ukrainian front between February and April 2025 by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel
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2000 Meters to Andriivka by Oscar-winning Ukrainian documentarian Mstyslav Chernov
The official competition begins on Wednesday, with 22 films selected from nearly 3,000 submissions vying for the Palme d’Or, which will be awarded at the closing ceremony on May 24.
Each day, two competition films will be screened.
Opening Wednesday’s competition:
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Two Prosecutors by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, set in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s
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Sound of Falling by German director Mascha Schilinski, a drama spanning four generations of women
As in previous years, strong American participation is expected to define the world’s largest film gathering. One of the most anticipated official events is Robert De Niro’s public masterclass, followed by the world premiere of the latest Mission: Impossible film, starring Tom Cruise, who attended the opening ceremony.
Now 62, the Hollywood star returns to Cannes as the lead in the eighth and final installment of the action franchise — three years after arriving by helicopter for the world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick.
His presence is set to be one of the festival’s major highlights, with many surprises in store. The American production will be screened out of competition in the official selection.
(MTI)
