«Oui, je suis the godmother at the Cannes Film Festival»- Corriere.it

Oui, je suis Maitresse des Crmonies, Chiara Mastroianni could say, mimicking her mother’s famous commercial, Catherine Deneuve. You will be at the opening and closing ceremonies, in front of an audience of women dressed by the greatest designers and men in tuxedos with bow ties. The elite of cinema. The godmother of the Cannes Film Festival is an elegant, kind, reserved woman who calibrates her words with a chastened affability and a melancholic halo, as if she were afraid of her smiles.

He will turn 51 on May 28, two days after the opening of one kermesse that for two weeks suspended in a bubble far from the world, the most monumental, armored, pompous, paparazzi, tiring: even walking is a feat. Italy will show up armed to the teeth, with three films competing regularsMarco Bellocchio, Nanni Moretti, Alice Rohrwacher.

Chiara has the eyes of her father, Marcello Mastroianni, the actor who embodied Fellini’s dreams. Her mother, Catherine Deneuve, will appear in the posters that will be everywhere, on the Palace of cinema and in every boutiques; the photo shows her on Pampelonne beach, near Saint-Tropez, during the filming of La Chamade by Alain Cavalier: in the cinema the image of bourgeois women far from conventions.

Chiara has always recognized the privilege of being the daughter of parents of that stature. They separated when she was two years old. Her mother said of her: Chiara, Italian, suffers from her if there is no sun and light; her father, when he was annoyed with her, called her the French girl. She speaks an Italian with a French r.

I have immense stage fright but I am very happy, I see it as an absolute opportunity to follow the finest selection of cinema in the world. I do it sincerely because my desire to become an actress was born out of my love of movies, my pleasure as a spectator. The opening and closing are two very different moments, waiting for the result creates tension. Therefore, close to the verdicts, I will avoid big speeches. There is a formal aspect to my role, I would like a warm and natural tone. The festival is a promise of dizzying sensations, it gives the possibility of the unexpected.

In 1993, for my debut, My favorite season by André Techine. I was 21 years old. I was very impressed, but today the excitement and wonder are the same. I came back many times, in the race and in other sections. With Xavier Beauvois who in ’96 won the jury prize for N’oublie pas que tu vas mourirwith Arnaud Desplechin…In 2019 I won a A certain regard the best actress award for Room 212 by Christophe Honor, which has a special role for me. It was a complete surprise to me, I remember a feeling of illegitimacy coming over me, which often happens to actors, and the award didn’t heal me. Many years before I had been part of the jury, I was young, the president of the jury was Martin Scorsese.

It worried me to speak in front of the rest of the jury and especially in front of him. Which, however, invited me to have my say and to participate in the debates in equal part, despite my little experience. In the jury you discover a facet of the festival that you cannot imagine if you don’t experience it, in those meetings there are no sequins or decorations. I also remember 1996 on the red carpet with my dad for Three lives and one death by Raoul Ruiz, it was special to be with him and together in Cannes. And I remember when he came to the last minute to collect the prize for Oci Ciornie by Michalkov, for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.

Pass for being a cold woman while the complete opposite. I think her roles have impacted her image of her, and it’s been categorized. She is very funny, if there is a role that looks like Nelly in My man a savagethe film with Yves Montand, more than
in Beautiful by day. She is perceived as a distant actress, perhaps because she is blonde, or because of the characters she has played. But they are clichés. Beauty sometimes creates a barrier. The first time I worked with her was for To the two of us. I was seven years old.

He had a double soul, he was cheerful and melancholic at the same time. He was humble, down to earth, never self-centered, which is rare today. Unlike my mother, people think they knew him even if they never met him. It is a true perception. What if there’s one thing my parents had in common? Modesty, even if this thing came in a different way, my mother is more reserved.