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LYON, France — Todd Haynes, Zhang Ziyi, Daniel Brühl, Tsui Hark and Andrey Zvyagintsev attended the opening gala of France’s Lumière Festival Saturday night where Haynes teased his anticipated ‘De Noche,’ starring Pedro
Pascal. It also saw Lumière Fest chief Thierry Frémaux, also head of the Cannes Festival, take a well-received swing at U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump has protested that he wasn’t given the Nobel Peace Prize. The Lumière Award is the only prize we think he won’t ask for,” Frémaux told the crowd of the fest’s top honor. “In any case, we won’t give it to him,” Frémaux added, referring to the fest’s top honor at Lyon’s cavernous Halle Tony Garnier, a 5,000-seat concert hall, at a gala where he acted as ever as host.
Joel and Ethan Coen will accept this year’s Lumière Award later in the festival. The opening night, however, belonged very much to Haynes, in Lyon for a masterclass and a retrospective featuring “Poison,” “Safe,” “Far from Heaven” and “I’m Not There.”
On stage at the Halle Tony Garnier, he offered an update on his upcoming “De Noche,” the Pedro Pascal-Danny Ramirez romance revived after Joaquin Phoenix exited the project in 2024.
With filming now completed and a release date yet to be announced, Haynes said the film will “most likely be an R-rated film,” although he saw no need to make its visual language “prurient.”
“What’s going on between the two men is so complex and so moving, but ultimately, it’s a love story,” he said. “They’re exposing themselves to each other, and they’re exploring things about their masculinity, their vulnerability.”
Set in 1938, the film shares its historical backdrop with Ettore Scola’s “A Special Day,” the opening-night screening introduced by Haynes. Starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, the 1977 classic follows an encounter between a housewife and a gay man in Fascist Rome on the day of Hitler’s visit to Mussolini.
“Anyone can identify with what’s happening,” Haynes said of “De Noche.” “The sort of armor of masculinity is particular to men.” The film’s 1938 setting, he added, brings its own cultural barriers.
Joel and Ethan Coen will accept the fest’s Lumière Award at its climax on Oct. 16. “We like cinema brothers in Lyon,” Frémaux said, referring to Auguste and Louis Lumière, the Lyon-born cinema founders, as well as two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who received the prize in 2020.
The Coens join a roll call of previous recipients including Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Wong Kar-wai, Jane Fonda, Tim Burton, Jane Campion and Michael Mann.
Walking an improvised red carpet inside the Halle Tony Garnier, guests also included Andrey Zvyagintsev, Fatih Akin and Abel Ferrara. They helped launch the nine-day celebration of cinema, with 163 films and more than 400 screenings across dozens of venues in and around Lyon.
Zhang Ziyi is in town to introduce the first French screening of a 4K restoration of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which was shown out of competition at Cannes, won four Oscars and launched her internationally. Asked whether a film like that could be made today, she answered: “I don’t think so.” Digital tools might mean crews no longer need “50 people to pull the wire,” she said. “Maybe things get easier, but the feeling has changed.”
Frémaux also turned the opening ceremony into his customary crash course in Lyon cinema history.
This year he showcased the Lumière brothers’ autochrome color process through vivid early photographs and newly restored experimental footage, once again asserting the city’s claim as cinema’s birthplace.
The ceremony ended with the assembled guests delivering the traditional declaration that the festival was open, before Zhang obliged when asked to improvise a Chinese version.
At the gala dinner, cinema history gave way to another Lumière tradition: a full-volume blast of “Allumer le feu,” the exuberant anthem by late French rock idol Johnny Hallyday, a perennial favorite of Frémaux’s. French actress Alexandra Lamy and Brühl were among those dancing on their chairs.
The Lumière Film Festival runs through Oct. 18.
