New York - Woody Allen premieres his latest film at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, finding comfort and adulation in Europe away from controversies that have tarnished his name in the United States.
The famed American director, who has produced more than 50 movies, is best known for a film career that has concentrated on his life-long love affair with New York, the city of his birth.
But the 79-year-old, who has sneered at Hollywood and generated almost as much newsprint about running off with his former lover's adopted child as for his work, has found in Europe something of a latter-day renaissance.
He has shot eight of his last 11 films on the old continent -- in London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and the south of France -- and spoke last year of his dream of emulating the greats of European cinema.
"From the beginning, I dreamed of being Godard, Fellini, Truffaut or Resnais. Together with Bergman and Antonioni, these are the film-makers who made me want to do this job.
"I am part of a generation of directors who were not looking to Hollywood. We wanted to be Europeans!" he confessed in an interview with French weekly Nouvel Observateur published in October.
"My dream has come true: to become European -- or nearly," he said.
AFP
