April 9 (Punjab Khabarnama) : American actor-director Kevin Costner will be at the Cannes Film Festival after a long gap of 20 years. The first part of his four-episode epic Western, Horizon: An American Saga will premiere at the 77th edition of the Festival in the Out-Of-Competition slot.
The actor also stars in it along with Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Jena Malone. Costner is very well known in India for his Yellowstone and Dances With Wolves.
In a statement, he said “I’d like to thank the Festival de Cannes for including my film ‘Horizon, an American Saga’ in this year’s selection. It’s been 20 years since I’ve had the pleasure of being on the Croisette (Cannes’ beach front where the Festival’s main venue is located). I’ve been waiting for the right time to return and I’m proud to say that this time has come. ‘Horizon, an American Saga’ is a story that began 35 years ago, and I can’t think of a better place than Cannes to reveal to the world the result of such a wonderful adventure. The French have always supported movies and believed deeply in filmmaking. Just as I believe deeply in my movie…”
Horizon, an American Saga has been described by the Festival as as a “monumental project about the cost, in terms of war and violence, of the construction and expansion of the United States of America. Costner has always aimed to paint a portrait of America: its origins, its flaws and its legends. As we know from Dances with Wolves, the Western has become his preferred genre for expressing his political commitment to democracy and the environment”
A successful and popular actor (remember Elliott Ness in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables), Kevin Costner got behind the camera in 1990 with Dances with Wolves, a humanist chronicle in which he plays an American Civil War soldier close to a Sioux tribe. Dances with Wolves has become a cult feature and was a critical and box-office success, winning seven Oscars including Best Picture.
Costner continued to showcase his acting talent, constantly revealing new facets of his game: He played Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves by Kevin Reynolds (1991), Jim Garrison, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the Kennedy assassination in JFK by Oliver Stone (1991), a bodyguard on the lookout in Bodyguard by Mick Jackson (1992) and a fugitive with a big heart in A Perfect World by Clint Eastwood (1993).
So far, the Festival has announced two films apart from the Costner work: George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and opening movie The Second Act, directed by Quentin Dupieux and starring Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon.
The full line of films will be announced on April 11 in Paris by the Festival chief, Thierry Fremaux.
