Screen staff look at each of the titles in the Cannes Un Certain Regard section, highlighting past Cannes success and key filmmaking personnel.
Un Certain Regard
The Angel (Arg-Sp) - dir. Luis Ortega
Reuniting after Wild Tales and The Clan, Spain’s Film Factory and El Deseo and Argentina’s K&S Films join up with Underground Productions and Telefe on Ortega’s crime thriller. Newcomer Lorenzo Ferro stars as Carlos Robledo Puch, the teenage serial killer known as the Angel of Death who terrorised Buenos Aires in the 1970s. Twentieth Century Fox will distribute in Argentina in August, while UGC holds French rights.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Angel Face (Fr) - dir. Vanessa Filho
The feature debut of multidisciplinary artist Filho stars Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as an alcoholic mother who abandons her eight-year-old daughter after she meets a man in a club. It is produced by Carole Lambert for Windy Production and Marc Missonnier of Moana Films along with France’s Mars Films, which will handle French distribution.
Contact: Playtime
Border (Swe-Den) - dir. Ali Abbasi
Tehran-born filmmaker Abbasi makes a Cannes debut with his second feature, adapted from a short story by Let The Right One In author John Ajvide Lindqvist about a border guard (Eva Melander) known for her sense of smell who becomes obsessed with a suspected smuggler (Eero Milonoff). A graduate of the National Film School of Denmark, Abbasi’s 2016 debut, Shelley, played in the Berlinale’s Panorama. Nina Bisgaard, Piodor Gustafsson and Petra Jönsson produce for Meta Film Stockholm and Spark & Karnfilm, with Nordisk Film & TV Fund and Swedish Film Institute among its backers.
Contact: Films Boutique
The Dead And The Others (Por-Bra) - dirs. Joao Salaviza, Renée Nader Messora
Portugal’s Salaviza made his feature debut with 2015’s Montanha, which played in Critics’ Week at Venice. Brazil’s Nader Messora collaborated with Salaviza as co-writer and DoP of his 2018 Berlinale short Russa. Their debut as co-directors focuses on an indigenous 15-year-old boy running away from his village to the city. The duo produce with Ricardo Alves Jr and Thiago Macedo Correia.
Contact: Luxbox Films
Donbass (Ger-Fr-Ukr-Neth-Rom) - dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Competing in Cannes with his last three fiction features My Joy (2010), In The Fog (2012) and A Gentle Creature (2017), Loznitsa now opens Un Certain Regard with Donbass. Details of the plot are sketchy, but the film is set amid armed conflict in eastern Ukraine where gangs perpetrate mass robberies. Themes around propaganda and the distortion of truth are also explored. Donbass is produced by Germany’s Majade, France’s JBA Production, Ukraine’s Art House Traffic, the Netherlands’ Graniet Film and Wild At Art, and Romania’s Digital Cube.
Contact: Pyramide International
Euphoria (It) - dir. Valeria Golino
Italian actress-filmmaker Golino returns to Un Certain Regard after gaining a special mention for her feature debut Honey here in 2013. Written by Golino and Honey co-writers Francesca Marciano and Valia Santella, Euphoria depicts two brothers whose clashing personalities are put to the test when they must live together in Rome for several months. Produced by HT Film and Indigo Film with Rai Cinema, the film is being releasing in Italy by 01 Distribution.
Contact: True Colours
The Gentle Indifference Of The World (Fr-Kaz) - dir. Adilkhan Yerzhanov
This crime thriller is the fifth feature from Kazakh director Yerzhanov, who made a splash with his third feature, The Owners, which was showcased as a Special Screening at Cannes in 2014. The new film is co-written by Dutch scriptwriter Roelof Jan Minneboo, and is produced by Guillaume de Seille of France’s Arizona Films Productions with Serik Abishev of Kazakhstan’s Short Brothers.
Contact: Beta Cinema
Girl (Bel) - dir. Lukas Dhont
Dhont’s debut feature tells the story of a teenage girl born in a boy’s body who will do anything she can to achieve her dream of becoming a ballerina. The filmmakers were inspired by a real story from a ballet school in Antwerp. It is produced by Dirk Impens (The Broken Circle Breakdown) and co-written by Dhont and fellow feature debutant Angelo Tijssens. The project picked up work-in-progress prizes at France’s Les Arcs European Film Festival and at Belgium’s CONNeXT industry event in 2017.
Contact: The Match Factory
The Harvesters (Fr-Gr-Pol-SA) - dir. Etienne Kallos
The debut feature by Greek-South African writer/director Kallos is about a teenage boy growing up in a fiercely religious Afrikaans farming community, who is tasked by his mother to take a street orphan under his wing. The project has been supported at various stages by European funds and labs, including Eurimages, the Polish Film Institute’s fund for minority co-productions, CNC and Institut Francais. The Harvesters was also selected for Venice’s industry forum the Venice Production Bridge. The lead producer is Sophie Erbs of France’s Cinéma Defacto.
Contact: Pyramide International
In My Room (Ger-It) - dir. Ulrich Köhler
Hans Löw and Elena Radonicich star in Köhler’s drama about a dissatisfied man who wakes up one morning to discover the rest of humankind has disappeared. It is Köhler’s fourth feature and his first time at Cannes. He won the best director prize for Sleeping Sickness at the Berlinale in 2011. In My Room is produced by Pandora Film Production with Italy’s Echo Film and Germany’s Komplizen Film.
Contact: The Match Factory
Little Tickles (Fr) - dirs. Andréa Bescond, Eric Métayer
Writer, actor and co-director Bescond has adapted her own one-woman play of the same name about a young woman who was raped as a child by a family friend, and the devastating impact it has had on her life. She also stars in the film — her feature debut —with Karin Viard, Clovis Cornillac and Pierre Deladonchamps. Bescond’s co-director is actor Métayer, who is also making his directorial debut having acted in a number of French film and TV projects previously. Little Tickles is produced by Francois Kraus and Denis Pineau-Valencienne’s Les Films Du Kiosque. UGC Distribution is releasing in France.
Contact: Orange Studio
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (China) - dir. Bi Gan
Tang Wei, Sylvia Chang and Chen Yongzhong head the cast of this film noir, which revolves around a man who returns to his hometown of Guizhou after a long absence. There he discovers traces of a mysterious woman with whom he spent the summer two decades ago. Bi’s second feature marks his Cannes bow, following acclaimed 2015 debut Kaili Blues, which won the best emerging director prize at Locarno and best new director at the Golden Horse Awards.
Contact: Wild Bunch
Manto (Ind-Fr) - dir. Nandita Das
Set against the partition of India in the late 1940s, Das’s second film casts Nawazuddin Siddiqui as real-life playwright and author Saadat Hasan Manto who makes the difficult choice of leaving his beloved Bombay for Lahore when sectarian violence engulfs the Indian subcontinent. Das is a renowned actress-turned-director who served on the Cannes Competition jury in 2005 and short film jury in 2013. The project is backed by HP Studios with Filmstock as a producer and Sandrine Brauer’s En Compagnie Des Lamas as French co-producer.
Contact: Radiant Films International
Murder Me, Monster (Arg-Fr-Chile) - dir. Alejandro Fadel
As a screenwriter, Argentina’s Fadel has worked with Pablo Trapero on a trio of features (Carancho, Lion’s Den, White Elephant) and on Pickpockets by Peter Webber. Having previously played in Critics’ Week in 2012 with The Wild Ones, Fadel now presents a dark thriller about a man who is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital after his wife is found beheaded. The film is produced by Argentina’s La Union De Los Rios and France’s Uproduction, in co-production with Chile’s Cinestacion.
Contact: The Match Factory
My Favorite Fabric (Fr-Ger-Tur) - dir. Gaya Jiji
Lebanese actress Manal Issa (Nocturama, Parisienne) stars as Nahla, a young woman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery in a Damascus brothel run by her neighbour on the eve of Syria’s civil war. Syrian filmmaker Jiji was inspired by Luis Buñuel’s Belle De Jour for her debut feature (“although Nahla doesn’t turn to prostitution,” she adds), which shot in Istanbul last summer. The project took part in Cinefondation’s L’Atelier in 2016, and received funding from CNC, Eurimages and the French-German Mini-Treaty.
Contact: Urban Distribution International
Rafiki (Ken-SA-Fr-Neth-Ger-Nor) dir. Wanuri Kahiu
Based on Monica Arac de Nyeko’s award-winning Ugandan short story Jambula Tree, Rafiki is the coming-of-age tale of two young women from the same Nairobi estate, who meet and then fall in love. The film is produced by Steven Markovitz of South Africa’s Big World Pictures, with financing from myriad sources including the Institut Francais, CNC, Netherlands Film Fund, Hubert Bals Fund and the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund. It is Kahiu’s second feature following From A Whisper in 2009.
Contact: MPM Premium
Sextape (Fr) - dir. Antoine Desrosieres
After two early features — 1993 debut A La Belle Etoile starring Julie Gayet and Banqueroute in 2000 — Desrosieres’ third film follows two Muslim sisters (Inas Chanti and Souad Arsane, in the same roles they played for the director’s 2014 medium-length Haramiste) who find themselves caught up in a sex-tape scandal. The film comedy shot in Strasbourg with support from the Alsace regional fund. Annabelle Bouzom produced, and Rezo Films will release in France in June.
Contact: Films Boutique
Sofia (Mor-Fr-Qat) - dir. Meryem Benm’Barek
The debut feature from French-Moroccan director Benm’Barek is about a 22-year-old woman, the only daughter in a traditional Casablanca family. She is shocked to discover she is about to give birth and frantically tries to find the father of her baby. Sara Elmhamdi Elalaoui and Sarah Perles star. Sofia is produced by Olivier Delbosc for France’s Curiosa Films and backed by CNC and Doha Film Institute (DFI). It was showcased as a work-in-progress at DFI’s Qumra in March. Memento Films has French rights.
Contact: Be For Films
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