Is social media a waste of time, as David Remnick said? Maybe so. But Twitter, Instagram and the rest make keeping up with other people's lives easy and free. Where the Cannes festivalgoer is concerned, a spur-of-the-moment video on Instagram by a filmmaker can potentially add insight into what they're experiencing. At the same time, it's important not to lose touch of the fact that social media is often as vapid as it is useless

"Based on a true story" ("D'après une histoire vraie" in the French original) is the latest film by Roman Polanski, and a late addition to this year's Cannes program. The film was adapted from the namesake novel by author Delphine de Vigan. In it, a writer (played by French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski's real-life wife) living in Paris publishes an autobiographical novel, and it does not go over well with her relatives who now

Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Maren Ade, Fan Binbing, Park Chan-Wook, Paolo Sorrentino and Gabriel Yared (a French-Lebanese composer known for writing the score for "The English Patient") have just been announced as this year’s jurors at the 2017 Cannes Festival, celebrating seventy years this year. These brave men and women will help jury president Pedro Almodóvar in choosing a winner among this year's

This afternoon the Cannes Festival, still ensconced in their rue Amélie offices in central Paris, announced that Uma Thurman will preside over this year's Un Certain Regard jury. The Un Certain Regard ("a certain perspective") program offers a mishmash of diverse films by known and unknown filmmakers. Past jury presidents have included Isabella Rossellini and Pablo Trapero.

One of the films to appear out of competition this year at the Cannes Festival is Takeshi Miike's adaptation of the manga opus "Blade of the immortal" ("Mugen no Junin" in the romaji original). The film combines magic with swordsmen, valor, many good sword fights, and the need for revenge. Manji's (played by Japanese actor Takuya Kimura) younger sister is killed in front of him. He goes on a quest to avenge her. A mysterious

Gentlemen, start your engines!

The filmmakers, their movies, all of these, and more, were announced during a well-attended press conference at a grand movie theater on the Champs Elysées this morning.

Two notable comebacks this year are Fatih Akin, with “Aus Dem Nichts” (“In the Fade”) and John Cameron Mitchell, who was last in

Syria's white helmets are the country's first responders. They're there when bombs go off, when buildings collapse, when bodies need to be recovered and the wounded hospitalized. "Last Men in Aleppo," a documentary directed by Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad in collaboration with the Aleppo Media Center, follows two men from the White Helmets who navigate the war-torn city of Aleppo in various search-and-rescue missions.