Turkish actresses on Cannes red carpet

CANNES

Actress Saadet Aksoy poses on the red carpet as she arrives for the screening of the film "La Venus a la Fourrure" (Venus in Fur) in competition during the 66th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes May 25, 2013. REUTERS/Yves Herman

As the guests of acclaimed director Roman Polanski, Turkish actresses Cansu Dere and Saadet Işıl Aksoy attended the 66th Cannes Film Festival and walked its red carpet, Anatolia news agency reported. The actresses attended the premiere of Polanski’s film “La Venus a La Fourrure” (Venus in Fur), which was one of the Cannes film festival’s two final movies in the main competition that premiered on May 25.

An avenging Venus settling the psychological and sexual score is the star of the film, an adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novella, “Venus in Furs.” The film stars his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Mathieu Amalric as an actress and theater director rehearsing an adaptation of the novella. The film features Seigner as a strong, feminine actress who comes to dominate her director.

First French-language film

The French-Polish director was one of 20 vying for the top Palme d’Or prize which was expected to be handed out last night by a jury led by Steven Spielberg. Polanski won the prize in 2002 for “The Pianist,” his semi-autobiographical drama about the Warsaw Ghetto, for which he also won an Oscar for best director.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called Polanski’s first French-language film a “playful if occasionally heavy-handed jeu d’sprit on the subject of sexual role-play, the games we all play, illusion and reality, and directing as a sexual act,” reported Reuters.