Cannes 2005 was dominated by ageing male alumni presenting paternally-themed features. Séamas McSwiney reports from the festival that's the daddy of them all

Every year, regular as Christmas, the family of cinema takes over a French seaside town in a well-planned invasion. Economics and entertainment meet up with their racier cousins, business and pleasure, for an annual general meeting about finance and films, movies and money, where enough cultural diversity is generated to satiate any cosmopolitan soul.

Paternally yours

The visible tip of this giant iceberg – the part that is reported to film fans and stargazers around the world – is the competition. As the twenty or so films are unspooled at the rate of two or three a day, disappointment is registered for some and others are tipped as potential prize-winners, while non-competitive punditry tries to detect an overall theme to the collection. This year's consensus seemed to say that Cannes's cinematic heart belonged to Daddy. Not the indulgent sugardaddy that Marilyn sang of, but a bad dad, whose malevolence ranged from the common-or-garden chickenshit dad to the heinous child murderer. Artistic Director Thierry Fremaux certainly knew what he was doing when he invited Star Wars's Darth Vader (dark father!) to take a wicked walk up the red carpet on Sunday's global opening of the film that finally reveals the moment of parental treachery that spawned a double trilogy of movie blockbusters. A moment amusingly announced by one of the trades as 'When the Sith hit the Fans'.

An enticing collection of past prize-winners, the 2005 competition read like a list of nostalgic promises or a celluloid attack of male menopause, depending on how full your glass is.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 105.