Javier Bardem Gets Cannes Love for ‘The Beloved,’ Landing 7-Minute Ovation

Cannes regular Javier Bardem was the toast of the Palais on Saturday as “The Beloved” had its world premiere in competition and received a 7-minute ovation.

A beaming Bardem went up and down the line of the film’s cast, hugging each one. He also waved enthusiastically to the crowds up in the balcony. At one point, he lovingly gave festival director Thierry Fremaux a bear hug.

From Rodrigo Sorogoyen — an Oscar nominee for his short film “Mother” — “The Beloved” sees Bardem play a legendary director who offers his estranged daughter (Victoria Luengo) a role in his latest film under the pretext of helping her with her stalled acting career. But while working together on set brings them closer together than they have been for years, it also reopens old wounds.

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Melina Matthews, Marina Foïs and Malena Villa also star in the film, which shot last year in Fuerteventura, with Bardem and Luengo shooting their first scenes without having met previously as a way of conveying the context of two people who hadn’t been in touch for so long.

“The Beloved” marks the sixth film Bardem has brought to Cannes and the fourth in competition after Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows,” Sean Penn’s “The Last Face,” and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful,” which won him the best actor Palme in 2010. Other features he’s starred in at the festival include Woody Allen’s “Vicky Christina Barcelona” and the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men,” which premiered at the festival two years after Bardem served on the jury under Emir Kusturica.

Speaking in a recent Variety cover story, Bardem claimed that he had been in “many realities” of the festival.

“I’ve been a juror. I’ve been recognized with this amazing award, a recognition that, for me, is one of the most important in the world. At the same time, I’ve been with movies that were killed and got stones thrown at,” he said, referring to 2016 title ‘The Last Face’ about humanitarians that was widely panned.