Bravos and boos divided the press
audience at the pre-premiere screening of Paolo Sorrentino's
film Youth at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.
Journalists hailed and catcalled Sorrentino's
English-language film starring Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine
as two elderly residents of an Alpine spa hotel trying to fend
off the inevitable and revive memories of their youthful antics.
Divisive debate pervaded Twitter, with users calling the
film "conceited, inane, egocentric" and a "masterpiece".
"Youth is an optimistic film, possibly made to exorcise
certain fears that I and I think all of us have," Sorrentino
said at a press conference.
"If you can have glimpse into the future, you can have a
reason of youth", said the director, who won the best foreign
film Oscar with The Great Beauty last year.
Actors Caine, Keitel, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda, Rachel Weisz
and producers Fabio Conversi, Nicola Giuliano and Giampaolo
Letta were also at the press conference.
Youth, which premieres Wednesday night, is one of three
Italian films competing for the Palme d'Or.
The others are Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales, also in
English, and Nanni Moretti's 'Mia Madre' (My Mother).
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