U2’s Bono receives seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes for new ‘Stories of Surrender’ movie

The Cannes premiere of the new film Bono: Stories Of Surrender has received a seven-minute standing ovation.

• READ MORE: ‘Bono: Stories of Surrender’ review: U2 frontman’s stunning stage show becomes unmissable film

The 86-minute feature screened out of competition at the film festival on Friday (May 16), with the U2 frontman in attendance at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. As the credits rolled, the audience rose for an extended ovation – a longstanding Cannes tradition.

Bono then thanked the audience for their reaction and paid tribute to director Andrew Dominik (Blonde, One More Time With Feeling) and the late Steve Jobs – Apple TV+ will be streaming the film worldwide from May 30.

Concluding his speech, he invoked the festival’s political roots. Founded in 1939 as a direct response to the Venice Mostra Festival having been co-opted by Mussolini and Hitler, Bono said: “The festival was set up to fight fascism. Slava Ukraine.”

Stories Of Surrender is a hybrid of concert movie and visual memoir, featuring stripped-back live performances from Bono’s one-man shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre in 2023, as well as spoken word passages from the singer’s 2022 autobiography, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.

In a four-star review of the film, NME wrote: “As for the stories themselves, on film, they have an extra layer of emotion, allowing the audience to view every expression and impression on Bono’s face as he recalls constantly fighting for his father’s approval in the local boozer or his “selfish” struggle with striving for greatness, almost at the expense of his marriage. The fact that he does it all with just a couple of chairs, impressions and the odd sound effect is a testament to his skills as a storyteller.”

While at Cannes, Bono also spoke about the as-yet-untitled next U2 album. He confirmed to Rolling Stone that the band has been recording material, “and it sounds like future to me”.

“Nostalgia is not to be tolerated for too long, but sometimes you’ve got to deal with the past in order to get to the future and to the present,” he added. “To get back to now is our desire. Get back to this moment we’re in.”

“We had to go through some stuff, and we’re at the other end of it.”

Last November, U2 guitarist The Edge confirmed that drummer Larry Mullen Jr. – who had to sit out of the band’s historic Las Vegas Sphere residency due to injury and recovering from surgery – has been back in the studio with them.

The guitarist also said that the new album would not be “a straight-up rock thing”. In January, he added that new U2 music would arrive “very soon”.

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