Cannes Day 8: Almodóvar screening drama, Refn brings Hell

The Cannes Film Festival took a turn from fiction drama to an unexpected real-life emergency during a screening of Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, which cast a shadow over Day 8 on the Croisette. While the mood was subdued, there were a few notable moments.

A Christmas scare

A press screening of Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas on Tuesday was abruptly halted halfway through after an audience member experienced a medical emergency, prompting a full evacuation of the theater to allow emergency crews to respond.

According to Deadline, the incident coincidentally occurred during a hospital scene in the film. Festival organizers released an official statement: “A person suffered a medical emergency on Tuesday evening during the press screening of Bitter Christmas, in the Bazin theater. The screening was immediately interrupted, and the theatre evacuated to allow emergency services to assist them. The person was conscious and responsive before being transported to the hospital for further medical care. Once the intervention was completed, the screening resumed from the beginning of the film.”

While the afternoon press screening faced an unexpected intermission, the film’s official world premiere later that evening went off without a hitch, culminating in a standing ovation, which clocked in at about seven minutes, 10 minutes shy of the mark set by his previous film, 2024’s Venice-winning The Room Next Door.

“This is so moving that I have no words,” the filmmaker told the audience. “All the screenings I’ve had at this place, I’ve always found the audiences to be so warm when I’m here. Thank you so much. Just to enter from that door and sitting down here, this is really a dream for me. And I will miss it very much when I will not come any more.”

Despite the warm reception inside the theater, early critical reviews have emerged as decidedly mixed. The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney said that “Almodóvar’s elegant rumination on art and ethics is intensely personal but emotionally unyielding,” while Variety’s Guy Lodge argued that the film is “enjoyable and immaculately art-directed and color-blocked,” but added it “doesn’t leave you much to hold onto.”

Hope trailer drop

Following its successful Cannes premiere, Na Hong-jin’s alien epic Hope released an action-packed trailer on Tuesday, with the director capitalizing on the momentum to announce plans for a potential sequel. Speaking at a press conference, Na teased the future of the project, saying, “I think you can readily imagine this sequel. And there’s a script that’s already been done that I’d like to shoot. So if I have the opportunity, I would indeed make a sequel if possible.”

The sci-fi thriller features real-life couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, who made a rare joint red-carpet appearance at the festival premiere just two nights earlier. They anchor an ensemble cast that includes Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Taylor Russell, and Cameron Britton.

Vikander said she was “blown away” by Na’s acclaimed 2016 horror film The Wailing and had long wanted to work with him. Fassbender playfully deflected credit for his own casting, joking that his wife was the ultimate reason he signed onto the project. “Alicia told me to do it,” he said.

A Hell of a hello

Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Her Private Hell received the requisite standing ovation at its Cannes premiere (with reports ranging from seven to 12 minutes). The film, which stars Charles Melton, Sophie Thatcher, and Havana Rose Liu, centers on Thatcher as a tortured actress forced to confront severe family trauma when her best friend marries her father. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure known as “The Leather Man” goes on a killing spree. Melton co-stars as an Army private who tries to hunt down the killer.

During an emotional press conference, the director opened up about a harrowing medical scare that forced him to undergo emergency heart surgery, revealing that he was clinically dead for 25 minutes — an experience that profoundly altered his outlook on life.

“I’ve been given a gift. I can start over again,” he said while tearing up. “I was given a second chance.”

Updated Standing-O Scoreboard

*averaged from published reports