Cannes, France (AP)-Cannes is a miniature journey from Bonos Seaside-Villa in Eze-sur-Mer. He bought it in 1993 with The Edge and looked at a coast gratefully who, as he says, gave him a “late adolescence”.
“I can tell you that I slept here on beaches nearby,” says Bono with a grin. “I woke up in the sun.”
However, this does not mean that the Cannes Film Festival is a particularly familiar experience for the U2 front man. He is here to premiere the Apple TV+ documentary “Bono: Stories of Surrender”, which captures his one-man stage show. Before Bono’s daughter, the actor Eva Hewson, gave him advice.
“She said,” Just come over yourself and bring it, “said Bono in an interview with a hotel before the croisette. “What do I have to bring? Bring yourself and your gratitude that you are a musician, and you allow you a festival that is celebrating actors and storytellers of a different kind. I said: ‘Ok, I’ll try to bring it.'”
In addition, in Cannes, as he stated, the Venice Film Festival at that time was founded in the middle of the Second World War. He said “was searched for fascists”.
Shifts in geopolitical tectonics were much about Bono’s thoughts. He has spent a enormous part of his activist life to fight for support for Africa and fight HIV-AIDS. US President Donald Trump’s dismantling from USAID has reversed a lot.
“What is irrational is a pleasure in the notification of these mercy institutions,” said Bono.
“Bono: Stories of Surrender”, a black and white film equipped by Andrew Dominik, which streams on May 30th, adapts the one-man stage show, which in turn comes from Bonos 2022 book “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story”.
In the film, Bono is and reflected on itself, through the formative influence of his father, U2S suddenly to fame and takes into account how ego and social work could be associated. He calls it “the big stories of a short rock star”. And as was the case in a recent sunlit afternoon in Cannes, Bono makes a fascinating raconte.
The comments were easily processed for clarity.
AP: You have long said that globalization lifts the development of nations out of poverty. What have you been doing recently from turning away from globalization by many countries?
Bono: Well, that’s right. Globalization did very well to the arms of the world. This and reinforced auxiliary levels brought a billion people from extreme poverty and halved childhood mortality – remarkable jumps of quality of life for people.
But it is also fair to say that certain communities have really paid the price for this – here in Europe, in the United States. And I am not sure whether these communities were attributed enough to weather the globalization. So I understand how we got this place, but it does not mean that it is the right place where we can be.
Nationalism is not what we need. We grew up in a very charged atmosphere in Ireland. It makes them suspicious of nationalism and animal spirits who can be lined up. I am talking about the handover, “stories of the handover”, at a time when the world has never been closer to a world war in my life. At first I think that it looks absurd, a bit ridiculous – that has never stopped me in the past – but I think it’s okay to look ridiculous for these ideas. Like dedication, non -violent, peace.
AP: Do you have a sense of Pope Leo XIV?
Bono: The fresh Pope, he looks like a Pope. This is a good start. I have just seen his first piece the other day and he spoke of screaming, God could whisper. I thought, “Oh, that could be interesting.” I’m more of a shouter myself. I come from punk rock. But I learn to transform this scream into a whisper in this film in order to achieve intimacy.
AP: The most moving parts of “stories of the handover” are when they talk about their father, who died in 2001. How did your feelings towards him develop over time?
Bono: Well, the accuracy of the degradation-“You are a baritone who thinks that he is a tenor”-is everything comprehensive. I wanted the play “The Bariton, who thinks he was a tenor”. He is in my thoughts because it is the reason why I sing.
It is a wound that will never close, because after I had played him on stage for all these nights – only turning left or right – I always loved it, but I started to really like him. He started to make me laugh. There was a gift and the voice he left me. If he would forgive me that he has embodied him in the Teatro di San Carlo as a holy place for tenors. But here I imitate as an actor, so.
AP: You have spent the past five years in a state of self -analysis. First the book, then the stage show, now the film. Why?
Bono: Mission Creep. I knew I had to write the book. The piece was that I didn’t have to tour the book in normal advertising measures, that I could actually have fun with it and play all the different characters in my life. I found it really a lot of fun. Then I realized: Oh, there are parts of them that people know nothing about. We don’t go to U2 shows to laugh at belly laughter. But that’s part of the I am, that is both the disaster and melancholy.
Then you play in the way with many cameras. Enter Andrew Dominik and he taught me something that I didn’t really understand, but my daughter: The camera really knows when you are lying. So if you want to tell this story, get better ready to take off your armor. You will feel naked in front of the entire school, but that needs that.
AP: If you come out on the other hand, have you gained a fresh perspective on yourself?
BONO: Based on my behavior, the answer to this question is probably only in the past week: must make more effort. The lack of progress of the pilgrim. I would say that I understand a little better where I came from and that I depend on how I handled it.
I called the hall of the mirror when you try to find out who you are and who is behind the face. Then you only see all of these faces back and they are all true. The true star of this film is my father. I like him better than myself because humor has become so significant to me. It is not that everything has to be a belly laugh, but there is a freedom. People like me can sing about freedom. It is much better to be.
AP: You used to talk about the increasing threat to the First World War. Do you still hope as someone who has often sung for peace and worked for peace?
Bono: There is a minister from Albania who said something that really thought of me. She said: If you have the chance to hope, it is a moral duty because most people don’t. So, yes, I feel that we will find out from it. This is a scary moment.
I think we are sober that we can lose everything we have won, but it can change to the course. I only believe in people. I believe in Americans enough. I am an Irish person, I can’t tell people how to coordinate.
I can tell you that a million children die because their life maintenance systems have been pulled out of the wall with glee, that is not the America that I recognize or understand. You are at the forefront of Europe here. America came in and saved the day. Ironically also Russia. More people died of Russia and fought against the Nazis than everyone else. Now they compete in their own sacred memories by stepping the Ukrainians, who also died on the front. I think part of it is that the story did not recognize it.
I think there is integrity in the Russian people. In my view, I have to change your leader. I think there is integrity in the Americans. You will find out. Who was it who said: If you give the Americans the facts, you will make the right choice at some point. At the moment they don’t get the facts. Remember: A decline in the HIV-AIDs by 70%, which was led, followed democratically. The greatest health intervention in the history of medicine to combat HIV-AIDs was thrown away. It was almost there. For a space driver, it is like going to Mars and going: “No, we will return.” It is confusing for me.
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Further reporting on the 2025 Cannes Film Festival can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival.
