We’ve been talking about Project Z (like Z) for a year, Michel Hazanavicius’ remake of the brilliant Japanese zombie film Don’t Cut. A real fake movie of the living dead, with a very large cast – Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Matilda Lutz, Finnegan Oldfield, Grégory Gadebois, Sébastien Chassagne, Raphaël Quenard, Lyes Salem, Luàna Bajrami, Charlie Dupont, Jean-Pascal Zadi, and more. While the feature film was announced as the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival, a strange mess happened this weekend of April 23 and 24. In question ? His title. And the use of the letter “Z”, in this current context.Variety informed us this Friday, April 22 that the Ukrainian Film Institute sent an official letter to the Cannes Film Festival and to the director of said feature, asking that the title of the film be changed, since the “Z” is used by Russians as a pro-conflict symbol across Europe. The Institute therefore claims that “changing the title of the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival would be a gesture against barbarism, violence and terror of the Russian army”, since according to this letter, “in Russia, local media have already begun to exploit it, to publish articles which could be summed up in ‘You see? They also support.'”. Hazanavicius explained to Variety that he had named his film thus in reference to the Z series from which he was inspired, in addition to the obvious mention in the first letter of “zombie”. He also recalled that he had spent several years on his film The Search, which recounts the war in Chechnya and “the barbaric way the Russian army had of treating the Chechen people”. 25, it was announced that the film would change its title, and henceforth be called Coupez! – which refers to the VF title of the original film, but also to the international title of the feature (Final Cut, which means Final assembly, therefore). Michel Hazanavicius explains as follows: “In view of the symbolic charge taken by the letter ‘Z’ since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and at the request of Ukrainian filmmakers, I decided to change the title of my film. This title was maybe funny when we finished the film a few months ago, it isn’t funny at all, and I can’t take it. My film is made to bring joy and in no way do I would like him to be associated directly or indirectly with this war. I am therefore very happy to change it, and to this extent to mark my most total support for the Ukrainian people. I take this opportunity to thank all the teams of production, distribution, promotion, and exhibition that made this decision possible.”Cut! will hit theaters on May 17.
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