Dining Among Royalty and Family - According to French news sources, Vincent was in Cannes during the film festival this month. On Saturday evening, May 12th, actress Carole Bouquet was honored at a special dinner on a luxury yacht anchored in the bay at Cannes. Other guests included her long-time boyfriend, Gerard Depardieu, Vincent and his wife Karine, as well as Prince Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. Carole and Gerard were in Cannes so they could attend the screening of the extended version of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Gerard is the father of Karine's ten-year-old daughter, Roxane.

The CD soundtrack for Bride of the Wind will be available at Amazon.com, CDnow.com and Iclassics.com. There are 21 tracks totaling 78 minutes. Composers include Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler, Stephen Endelman and Janos Bihari. Gustav's Fifth Symphony is included, a piece that some of you may already be familiar with. I fell in love with Mahler's music when it was featured in the classic film, Death in Venice.

Laure Masseglia of France just sent word that some exciting news was announced on French television today. Vincent is directing his first feature-length film, called Peau d'Ange (Angel Skin) starring Guillaume Depardieu (Gerard's son) and Dominique Blanc. The script is written by Vincent's wife, Karine, and the film is being produced by his good friend, Luc Besson (who lives with Karine's sister, Virginie).

As previously reported in my February newsletter, Vincent has been cast in the French comedy, Voyez Comme on Danse (See How We Dance), inspired by British author Joseph Connolly's book, Summer Things. It will be directed by actor/writer/director Michel Blanc. Filming will begin in July and will take place between Paris and Le Touquet (seaside resort in Northern France). Its tentative release date is spring of 2002.

And Marcia Culver of Iowa just sent me the following excerpt from The Express dated May 11 - A crash course in French looms for Joseph Connolly. The extravagantly bearded author is celebrating a major contract for a French film version of his book, Summer Things. The cast for the adaptation will include The Night Porter star Charlotte Rampling, former Chanel model Carole Bouquet, Vincent Perez and Charlotte Gainsbourg. "The rights have been signed away for a six-figure sum," Joseph, 50, tells me. "The fact that it's a French language film might pose a problem - I can order food and drink in French and not much more than that. But once you've signed away the rights to a book, it's wonderful."

Here are two new film posters. This fourth Indochine poster comes from Thailand and unlike the French and American ones, it includes Vincent. The second poster is from La Maison de Jade. Many thanks to Sandy Creelman for sending it along.

Here's an especially handsome photo of Vincent that comes from the December 1992 issue of the Japanese publication, Screen. He doesn't seem to have aged at all as he has this exact same look in the film Epouse-moi.

No major news to report at this time. The Saturday edition of the Washington Times listed Bride of the Wind as "dateless but eligible" among June film releases, but all other sources indicate June 8 as its opening date in the US. Though distributed by Paramount Classics, it's a small-budget film with little media publicity - I still haven't been able to find its poster.

The Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 9 -20, is one of the biggest film markets in the world. On May 10, Bride of the Wind will be shown, not among the films in competition, but simply among the hundreds of films looking for worldwide distribution.

Good news for those of you living in the San Jose, California area - Bride of the Wind will be opening June 8 at one of the city's four Camera Cinemas. Other cities will be posted whenever screening schedules are published.

This film was recently discussed in an article by the Orlando Sentinel entitled, "Artworks frame way filmmakers set the scene" -

In recent years, filmmakers have been increasingly setting their stage with artworks. A smashing canvas or a provocative sculpture can be used to distinguish characters and scenes with a quick stroke. "Sometimes it's just wallpaper," says Lawrence Levy, producer of the soon-to-be-released Bride of the Wind, a film about Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler who had an tempestuous affair with the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka. "But other times it can amplify meaning," Levy said. In Bride, for example, a Kokoschka painting, from which the film takes its name, reflects the film's mood and idea, while also amplifying a culminating and passionate scene, Levy said. In that scene, Kokoschka unveils a painting for Alma Mahler. The painting, a portrait of the two lovers, has an "embrace that is melting out into the wind," said Karen Williams, of Troubetzkoy Paintings Ltd. of New York, the studio that reproduced the work.

There are quite a few VP films being shown on TV in May. Look for Cyrano de Bergerac and Queen Margot on Bravo, I Dreamed of Africa and the making of this film on HBO Signature, plus Indochine and Talk of Angels on LOVE ( Encore's Love Stories).

Entertainment Weekly reports that Le Bossu will return to the US in July, but I have no idea where it will be screened. I know it was shown in LA back in '98 and in NYC a couple years ago, but I'm sure it was shown at other times and places.

As far as rumors in France about Vincent starring opposite Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct II, "this sequel has forever and finally been junked" according to today's issue of the New York Post.

The photo below was found on a David Letterman guest page and shows Vincent when he appeared on the show on September 3, 1996. He had just begun filming Swept from the Sea in Cornwall, England but made a quick trip to NYC to promote The Crow: City of Angels. For the snappies I took off the video of the show, visit the Letterman page. I love his pin-striped, double-breasted suit.