Cannes Film Festival: 7 Craziest Moments

At the Cannes Film Festival, it’s not just about the films. Inevitably, some of the annual festival’s most memorable moments take place along the Croisette, at post-screening parties and at high-price hideouts like the Hotel de Cap.

As the 2011 film fest gets underway, The Hollywood Reporter looks back at the seven most memorable moments to happen under the French Riviera sun. 

7) In 2006 Sacha Baron Cohen promoted his mockumentary film Borat and made fun of all of the Cannes beach skin-baring press stunts by wearing an ass-baring, electric lime-green mankini. Incroyable! 

6) While discussing their film Kung Fu Panda in 2008, Jack Black accidentally announced that his co-star Angelina Jolie was expecting twins with partner Brad Pitt, causing an international media firestorm.  

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5) In 1953, the world got it’s first look at Bridgette Bardot, just 19 at the time, when her then-husband Roger Vadim brought her to the festival. With her back to the Carlton Hotel, she posed languorously on the beach, as photographers snapped away. On a return visit to the festival i 1967, she was mobbed, and, as a result, has never been back.  

4) Richard Kelly almost didn’t make it to the 2006 festival to screen his political thriller Southland Tales. The Department of Homeland Security detained the director (whose full name is James Richard Kelly) after his identity was confused with another James Kelly, a suspected terrorist. 

3) In 1954, starlet Simone Sylva grabbed the attention of the papparazzi by removing her top in front of a delighted Robert Mitchum. The gallant actor quickly moved to cover her breasts with his meaty paws — causing a sensation in the process. 

2) Hundreds of audience members walked out of the 2003 screening of director Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny , in which Chloe Sevigny is seen performing full-on fellatio on Gallo. Roger Ebert, who was one of the mas exodus, dubbed it “the worst film in the history of the festival” at the time, and later wrote about what it was like to be in the theater.  

1) In 1991, Danish director Lars von Trier got so angry after his film Europa didn’t win the fest’s top Palme d’Or prize and was instead awarded the third place Jury Prize that he called jury chair Roman Polanski a “midget” during his acceptance speech.