How a French director helped the movie ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ get to Cannes
When the jury of the 1958 Cannes Film Festival announced that the Palme d’Or award was going to the Soviet movie ‘The Cranes Are Flying’, a young cameraman and director by the name of Claude Lelouch smiled contentedly. He knew from the very beginning that this movie would have a great future. And he himself did everything possible to help achieve this.
In 1956, Lelouch found himself in Moscow – he arrived as part of a group of French communists. The 19-year-old cameraman did not plan to talk about the victory of socialism: he just wanted to film the capital. He saw all the sights and managed to get to the ‘Mosfilm’ studio, where the movie ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ was being filmed at the time. Director Mikhail Kalatozov was a little taken aback – where did a foreigner come from at a Soviet film studio? But, he still decided to introduce him to the finished material and allowed him to work on the set.
Those few minutes changed Lelouch's life. That's when he decided to become a director. Returning to France, he told Favre Le Bret, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, about the Soviet movie. ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ was included in the competition program and ended up winning the main prize – the Palm d’Or – as well as a prize for cinematography and a special award for the leading role. In France alone, the movie was seen by more than five million people.
