Summary of this article
Javier Bardem's The Beloved received a rapturous ovation at Cannes.
The applause continued for 7 minutes in the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
In a video that has surfaced online, Bardem gave the festival director Thierry Fremaux a bear hug.
Spanish film El Ser Querido (Eng: The Beloved) starring Oscar winner Javier Bardem got a thunderous ovation at the 79th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday (May 16). The film premiered in the Grand Theatre Lumiere, receiving a seven-minute-long standing ovation post-screening.
Bardem hugged his co-stars and director after the screening. He also hugged the festival director Thierry Fremaux.
The Beloved premieres at Cannes
The Beloved has been directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, and Isabel Peña penned the screenplay. The film also starred Victoria Luengo. Melina Matthews, Marina Foïs and Malena Villa round out the cast.
The official synopsis of the film reads: “In El ser querido, an acclaimed film director and his daughter, an unsuccessful actress, shoot a film together after years of estrangement and a difficult past that none of them wants to talk about.”
The Beloved marks Javier Bardem's fourth film in competition in Cannes after Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows, Sean Penn’s The Last Face, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, which won Bardem the Best Actor Palme in 2010. It is his sixth to premiere at Cannes.
Speaking to Variety, the 57-year-old said that he had been in “many realities” of the festival.
“I’ve been a juror. I’ve been recognised with this amazing award, a recognition that, for me, is one of the most important in the world. At the same time, I’ve been with movies that were killed and got stones thrown at,” he said, referring to the 2016 movie The Last Face.
Bardem's recent films include Dune: Part Two and The Little Mermaid. Fernando León de Aranoa’s The Good Boss is his last Spanish project.
