The first Cannes Film Festival was held on this day in 1946.

One of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, the Cannes Film Festival is held once a year, usually in May, in Cannes, France. Each year, the festival showcases new films valued for their artistic and cinematic qualities. The films are judged, and awards are presented for the best film, best actor, best screenplay and other categories. Winners of Cannes awards include Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," and the Danis film "Dancer in the Dark." Originally envisioned in response to the interference of the fascist governments of Germany and Italy in selections for an established French festival, the first Cannes festival was scheduled to be held in 1939, with inventor Louis Lumière as the first president. WWII intervened, and the first festival began instead on this day in 1946.

ReadWriteThink
In Writing a Movie: Summarizing and Rereading a Film Script (3–5), students view a videotape or DVD of a film segment that has a great deal of action and little or no dialogue. After viewing the segment, students write a descriptive summary of the scene.

Students take on the role of the director of a movie in You Know the Movie Is Coming—Now What? (6–8). After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with a director's eyes, considering such issues as which scenes require a close-up of the main character and when the camera should zoom out to show the entire set.

In Lights, Camera, Action...Music: Critiquing Films Using Sight and Sound (9–12), students view a scene from "Good Morning, Vietnam" in which the visuals and the music contradict each other. They then use a scene analysis framework to explore why the director chose the setting, camera angles and music and what these choices do to create the scene's tone.

Literature Circle Roles Reframed: Reading as a Film Crew (6–8) transfers students' enthusiasm for film to reading and literature by substituting film production roles for the traditional literature circle roles.

Students are introduced to the definition and characteristics of a dystopian work by watching video clips from The Matrix and other dystopian films in Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film (9–12).

EDSITEment
In Scripting the Past: Exploring Women's History Through Film (9–12), students employ the screenwriter's craft to gain a fresh perspective on historical research, learning how filmmakers combine scholarship and imagination to bring historical figures to life and how the demands of cinematic storytelling can shape our view of the past. Working in small groups, students examine a figure in women's history through the lens of filmmaking, producing a screenplay based on an autobiographical narrative and their own research into the time period in which that autobiography is set.

Hamlet and the Elizabethan Revenge Ethic in Text and Film (9–12) contains a set of five activities for students to explore the themes of honor, loyalty and revenge in selected scenes from Hamlet. These activities involve literary analysis of the text, discussions of characterization and motive and comparison with a cinematic adaptation of the play.

Science NetLinks
The Science Update Clocking T. rex (6–12) discusses how one of the most popular movies in history used special effects that were not only exciting, but also scientifically accurate.