Cannes 2014: In Competition

The Captive (Can)

Dir Atom Egoyan

In a mighty year for Canada, Egoyan makes his seventh visit to the Croisette with this psychological thriller about a man’s search for his missing daughter. Egoyan needs a return to form after Devil’s Knot underwhelmed at the box office and was a no-show during last year’s awards season. Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman and Rosario Dawson star in the film previously known as Queen Of The Night. Egoyan won the Grand Jury Prize and Fipresci prize in 1997 with The Sweet Hereafter and won the Fipresci prize in 1994 for Exotica.

Contact eOne Films International cvanweede@entonegroup.com

Clouds Of Sils Maria (Ger-Fr-Switz)

Dir Olivier Assayas

With shades of All About Eve and Black Swan, the French director’s first film since spirit-of-‘68 saga Something In The Air — which premiered at Venice in 2012 — stars Juliette Binoche as a theatre actress whose world is shaken when a young starlet (Chloe Grace Moretz) is cast in a role she had made her own some 20 years earlier. Kristen Stewart co-stars as the PA forced to accompany the older actress on retreat to the Swiss Alps. One of the last films to be co-produced by the late Karl Baumgartner, Clouds Of Sils Maria brings Assayas back to the Cannes’ Official Selection for the first time since Carlos (2010), and is his first Competition contender since Clean (2004).

Contact MK2 juliette.schrameck@mk2.com

Foxcatcher (US)

Dir Bennett Miller

Only three narrative films into his career and Miller — the director of Capote and Moneyball — has developed a formidable track record in awards season. He leaves little to chance, famously pulling Foxcatcher from AFI Fest in 2013 and by extension last year’s awards season when he felt the bizarre true-life tale of death and Olympic wrestling champions was not ready. It will be intriguing to see what the international jury makes of the director’s first foray to Cannes. Whatever the outcome, he has gone two for two so far with lead actor Oscar nominations. No pressure then, Steve Carell and Channing Tatum.

Contact Panorama kimf@filmpanorama.com

Goodbye To Language 3D (Fr)

Dir Jean-Luc Godard

After omnibus film 3x3D, cinema icon Godard returns to the Croisette and the 3D format with drama Goodbye To Language. The official and cryptic plot for the New Wave legend’s 39th film gives little away: “A married woman and a single man meet./ They love, they argue, fists fly./ A dog strays between town and country./ The seasons pass./ A second film begins…” The cast includes Héloise Godet, Jessica Erickson, Kamel Abdelli, Richard Chevallier and Zoé Bruneau. Fox tied up US rights soon after last year’s Cannes Marché. The master has never won the Palme d’Or.

Contact Wild Bunch obarbier@wildbunch.eu

The Homesman (US)

Dir Tommy Lee Jones

The veteran actor’s directorial debut The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada announced a serious talent behind the camera, and also won him the best actor prize at Cannes in 2005. Jones will be looking to keep up appearances with another leftfield western about a lowlife who helps a pious spinster escort a trio of insane women to a church 400 miles away. He stars alongside Hilary Swank, Hailee Steinfeld and Meryl Streep. EuropaCorp financed and handles international sales.

Contact EuropaCorp www.europacorp.com

Jimmy’s Hall (UK-Ire)

Dir Ken Loach

Cannes perennial Loach returns for a record 12th Competition berth with this period drama about political activist Jimmy Gralton, who was deported from Ireland during the country’s ‘Red Scare’ of the 1930s. Barry Ward stars as Gralton in the actor’s first lead film role alongside newcomer Simone Kirby and Sherlock actor Andrew Scott. Jimmy’s Hall comes eight years after the director’s Ireland-set drama The Wind That Shakes The Barley scooped the Palme d’Or in 2006; he won the jury prize in 2012 for The Angels’ Share.

Contact Wild Bunch obarbier@wildbunch.eu

Leviathan (Rus)

Dir Andrey Zvyagintsev

A multi-character drama, Leviathan concerns the owner of a small-town auto shop coming into conflict with the mayor, who will stop at nothing to take possession of the man’s property and land. This is Russian director Zvyagintsev’s third film to launch at Cannes and his second in Competition. The Banishment won best actor for Konstantin Lavronenko in 2007, and Elena was awarded a special jury prize in Un Certain Regard four years later. Leviathan stars Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Aleksey Serebryakov and Elena star Elena Lyadova, and reunites Zvyagintsev with Elena and Banishment co-writer Oleg Negin.

Contact Pyramide International lgarzon@pyramidefilms.com

The Wonders (It-Switz-Ger)

Dir Alice Rohrwacher

Italian director Rohrwacher once again channels a troubled coming-of-age story through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl, as she did in her feature debut, the well-received 2011 Directors’ Fortnight entry Corpo Celeste. But in The Wonders (Le Meraviglie), the director draws on her own past. Rohrwacher, like her heroine, grew up in the Tuscan countryside with a German beekeeper father and Italian mother (played, just to make things interesting, by Rohrwacher’s actress sister Alba). Produced by London-based Carlo Cresto-Dina, the film features a cameo by Monica Bellucci as a reality TV diva.

Contact The Match Factory info@matchfactory.de

Maps To The Stars (Can)

Dir David Cronenberg

It is a boom time for Canadian auteur Cronenberg. He was recently the subject of a retrospective in Canada, is about to publish his first novel, Consumed, and returns to the Croisette for the fifth time — where he won the special jury prize in 1996 with Crash. After Cosmopolis failed to strike a chord in Competition in 2012, could this dark satire starring Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson and John Cusack be the one to restore the film-maker to his mid-2000s high of Eastern Promises and A History Of Violence?

Contact eOne Films International cvanweede@entonegroup.com

Mommy (Can-Fr)

Dir Xavier Dolan

This is writer-director Dolan’s fourth film to grace the Croisette (at the tender age of 25) but his first in Competition. The drama stars three Dolan veterans — Anne Dorval, Antoine Olivier Pilon and Suzanne Clément — in the story of a mother struggling to raise a troubled son with ADHD, and the kindly neighbour who intercedes in their lives for reasons that may not be entirely altruistic. In 2009, Dolan made his Cannes debut with I Killed My Mother, which won three Directors’ Fortnight prizes.

Sales Seville International apoirier@entonegroup.com

Mr Turner (UK)

Dir Mike Leigh

UK auteur Leigh returns to the Croisette with this biopic of famed Romantic painter JMW Turner — known as the ‘painter of light’ — four years after playing in Competition with comedy-drama Another Year. Returning Leigh regulars include actors Timothy Spall (as Turner) and Lesley Manville, producer Georgina Lowe, DoP Dick Pope and editor Jon Gregory. Sony Pictures Classics snapped up North American, Latin American and eastern European rights last year from the now-defunct Focus Features International. Leigh won the best director prize at Cannes in 1993 for Naked, and the Palme d’Or in 1996 for Secrets & Lies.

Contact Sunray Films cq@sunrayfilms.co.uk

Saint Laurent (Fr)

Dir Bertrand Bonello

Controversial French director Bonello was in Competition with Tiresia in 2003 and the brothel-set House Of Tolerance in 2011, while On War played in Directors’ Fortnight in 2008. His Saint Laurent is this year’s second biopic of the French fashion designer, following Jalil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent — although unlike Lespert’s film, Bonello has not had official approval from the late designer’s life and business partner Pierre Bergé. In Bonello’s version, produced by Mandarin Films’ Eric and Nicolas Altmayer, Gaspard Ulliel plays YSL and Jérémie Renier is Bergé, with Louis Garrel and Léa Seydoux contributing to the no-doubt edgy glamour.

Contact EuropaCorp contact@europacorp.com

The Search (Fr)

Dir Michel Hazanavicius

Known for his light comedies, writer-director Hazanavicius moves into potentially darker territory with this modern-day remake of Fred Zinnemann’s 1948 post-Second World War drama, now chronicling the unlikely friendship between an NGO worker and a young boy in Chechnya. The Search is Hazanavicius’s first feature since Oscar winner The Artist, which debuted at Cannes in 2011 and won the best actor prize for Jean Dujardin. This new film stars his wife, Bérénice Bejo — who won the best actress prize at Cannes in 2013 for The Past — and Annette Bening.

Contact Wild Bunch obarbier@wildbunch.eu

Still The Water (Fr-Jap)

Dir Naomi Kawase

Revered in France, which co-produces most of her films — including this one — but lesser-known elsewhere, Japanese auteur Kawase was the youngest winner of the Camera d’Or with Directors’ Fortnight selection Suzaku in 1997. Since then, two of her films have screened in Competition, including 2007 grand prix winner The Mourning Forest and Hanezu in 2011. To call this latest an adolescent detective story is probably to overstate the drama of a film set on the island of Amami Oshima, which looks set to mine familiar Kawase seams: the cycle of life, love and death, and the pressure that Japan’s mythic past exerts on its distracted present.

Contact MK2 juliette.schrameck@mk2.com

Timbuktu (Fr)

Dir Abderrahmane Sissako

Widely viewed as the most authoritative voice of contemporary African cinema, Mauritania-born, Mali-raised Sissako presented his feature Waiting For Happiness in Un Certain Regard in 2002, winning a Fipresci prize, and returned in 2006 with Bamako, which played out of competition. Certain to be one of the most politically charged films in Cannes this year, Timbuktu is inspired by the stoning of a young unmarried couple by Islamists in Mali in 2012. “In no way am I looking to over-emotionalise these events,” Sissako has commented. “What I do want to do is bear witness as a film-maker.”

Contact Le Pacte c.neel@le-pacte.com

Two Days, One Night (Bel-Fr-It)

Dirs Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Two Days, One Night continues the Dardenne brothers’ long association with Cannes, including two Palme d’Or wins for Rosetta (1999) and The Child (2005). Their last film, The Kid With A Bike, won the grand prix in 2011. Marion Cotillard stars as a woman who, with the help of her husband (Fabrizio Rongione), attempts to keep her job by persuading colleagues to give up their bonuses. Wild Bunch handles international sales, with a theatrical release planned for May 21 via Diaphana in France and Cinéart in Belgium. Sundance Selects has US rights.

Contact Wild Bunch obarbier@wildbunch.eu

Wild Tales (Arg-Sp)

Dir Damian Szifron

This dark-comedy omnibus explores different characters all trying to maintain their sanity amid the madness of modern life. Argentinian director Szifron’s last feature, 2005’s action comedy On Probation, attracted the attention of Pedro and Agustin Almodovar, whose El Deseo produces Wild Tales. This is Szifron’s first trip to Cannes, and Wild Tales is the only film from Latin America in the Competition. Ricardo Darin, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Dario Grandinetti lead the ensemble cast.

Contact Film Factory info@filmfactory.es

Winter Sleep (Turk-Fr-Ger)

Dir Nuri Bilge Ceylan

One of Europe’s most prestigious art-cinema auteurs, Turkey’s Ceylan has been a Cannes regular since his short Cocoon played in competition in 1995. Winter Sleep is his fifth consecutive Competition feature, with Distant and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia winning the grand prix in 2003 and 2011 respectively, and Three Monkeys winning the directing prize in 2008. Ceylan has been guarded about this new three-hour-plus drama, filmed in Cappadocia, and co-written with wife Ebru Ceylan — revealing only that it is a drama “about humans”. His fourth collaboration with producer Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan, Winter Sleep stars Haluk Bilginer from The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Contact Memento Films International sales@memento-films.com