Provence Fest Books Elvis & Lennon Docs
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- Provence Arts Festival du Film will hold its second edition July 29–August 1 in the hilltop village of Ménerbes in the Luberon region, programming seven music documentaries after its inaugural 2025 edition focused on photography.
- Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux personally selected Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (2026) for the festival — a restoration project built from previously unseen Warner Bros. archive footage and rare Elvis Presley audio recordings.
- One to One: John & Yoko (2025), directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald, headlines alongside the Elvis film, with Macdonald and cinematographer David Katznelson attending in person for screenings and a panel.
- Agnès Varda's Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988), the filmmaker's portrait of musician Jane Birkin, opens the festival on July 29, with producer Rosalie Varda — Agnès's daughter — on hand to introduce it.
- Festival founder and director Lucy Darwin, producer of Lost in La Mancha and Match Point, said the music focus reveals "not only the creative process but also the cultures, communities and personal journeys that shape artistic expression."
- Three day-by-day panels at the Hôtel de Tingry and Salle des Fêtes tackle artist biography ethics, the Rolling Stones' film legacy (via Susan Steinberg), and the director-editor-composer dialogue with Alexei Aigui and Alexandra Strauss, moderated by Sophie Rosemont and Mark Kermode.
- The festival's curatorial model will rotate annually: each future edition will explore a different discipline — visual art, performance, fashion, literature, architecture, poetry, dance, design, or food and wine — through documentary cinema.
Why it matters: By landing Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux as a personal selector and pairing Luhrmann's Elvis restoration with Macdonald's Lennon doc, the tiny Ménerbes festival punches well above its weight — and its rotating-discipline structure (photography in 2025, music in 2026, fashion or architecture next) gives it a differentiated niche on a crowded Provençal and Côte d'Azur festival calendar.
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