Screen previews the 21 titles playing in Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (which runs May 14-25), plus Out of Competition, Midnight and Special screenings.
COMPETITION
Atlantics (Fr-Sen-Bel) - Dir. Mati Diop
French-Senegalese filmmaker Diop makes history as the first African woman director to present a feature in Competition. It is her debut film after a number of shorts and documentary A Thousand Suns, which explored a film by her late director uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty. Set against the teeming Senegalese capital of Dakar, Atlantics revolves around the star-crossed relationship between a 17-year-old girl, headed towards an arranged marriage, and a young construction worker with ambitions to make it across the Atlantic to a new life.
Contact: mk2 Films
Bacurau (Fr-Braz) - Dirs. Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juliano Dornelles
Mendonca Filho returns to Cannes with his second Competition entry, following 2016’s Aquarius — this time co-writing and co-directing with regular production designer Dornelles. Described as a mixture of western, adventure and sci-fi, Bacurau is set in a small town in the Brazilian backlands that disappears from the map after the death of a woman at the age of 94. Sonia Braga, Udo Kier and Karine Teles lead the cast.
Contact: SBS International
The Dead Don’t Die (US) - Dir. Jim Jarmusch
Jarmusch has been a mainstay at Cannes throughout his career and finally gets the opening-night slot with his zombie dark comedy about smalltown US residents who battle the undead. The Dead Don’t Die features many of the director’s regular collaborators including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi and Iggy Pop. Focus Features will open the film in the US on June 14, and Universal distributes worldwide.
Contact: Brad Thompson, Focus Features
Frankie (Fr-Port-Bel-US) - Dir. Ira Sachs
In Sachs’ Cannes debut, Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei and Greg Kinnear star in the tale of several generations of a family who gather in an old town in Portugal. Said Ben Said, who worked with Huppert on Elle, produced the film via his SBS Productions, alongside co-producers O Som E A Furia and Beluga Tree. Frankie is the first time Sachs has shot outside the US. Sony Pictures Classics has the film for North America, Eastern Europe (including CIS), Scandinavia, the Middle East, South Africa, Spain, India and for worldwide airlines.
Contact: SBS International
A Hidden Life (US-Ger) - Dir. Terrence Malick
Malick returns to the Croisette for the first time since his 2011 Palme d’Or triumph with The Tree Of Life. His latest, formerly known as Radegund, stars August Diel as an Austrian farmer and conscientious objector in the Second World War, with a cast including Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz. Malick’s prodigious output of late — since 2011 he has directed more than half of his features spanning a 46-year career — has not always been well received by festival audiences, but he remains a draw and curiosity is riding high.
Contact: Antone Saliba, Mister Smith Entertainment
It Must Be Heaven (Fr-Ger-Can-Tur) - Dir Elia Suleiman
Palestine’s Suleiman was last in Competition in 2009 with The Time That Remains and won the jury prize with Divine Intervention in 2002. Having tackled life under occupation, Suleiman explores life in exile with humour in this comic saga touching down in Paris and New York. In a performance described by Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux as reminiscent of Buster Keaton, Suleiman plays a man who escapes Palestine in search of a new life, only to encounter the same problems as back home.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
Les Misérables (Fr) Dir. Ladj Ly
Ly, a long-time collaborator of French street artist JR, has honed his guerrilla filmmaking skills capturing life in the tough eastern suburbs of Paris, where he grew up. His feature debut expands his 2017 short of the same name, starring Damien Bonnard (Staying Vertical), Alexis Manenti and Djibril Zonga. They reprise their roles as three anti-crime brigade officers who are overrun while on duty in the notorious Paris suburb of Montfermeil, where Victor Hugo drew inspiration for his 19th-century literary classic Les Misérables, when it was a rural backwater more than 100 years ago.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
Little Joe (Austria-UK-Ger) - Dir. Jessica Hausner
Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw star in this sci-fi drama about a genetically engineered plant that scatters its seeds and seems to cause uncanny changes on living creatures. Austrian director Hausner makes the step up to Competition after premiering three previous titles in Un Certain Regard: Amour Fou in 2014, Hotel in 2004 and Lovely Rita in 2001. Producers are UK-France outfit The Bureau with Hausner’s own Austrian banner Coop99 Filmproduktion and Germany’s Essential Filmproduktion.
Contact: Coproduction Office
Matthias & Maxime (Can) Dir Xavier Dolan
The last time the French-Canadian enfant terrible attended Cannes, It’s Only The End Of The World was panned by the critics and won the grand prix. Dolan will be hoping for a better reception for his ensemble drama about the doubts that set in when two childhood best friends kiss on the production of a short film. Dolan features among the cast of mostly unknown actors.
Contact: Ruby Rondina, Seville International
Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Fr) - Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
A late addition to the Competition line-up, and screening towards the end of the festival to allow the Tunis-born director maximum time to complete his edit, Kechiche returns to Cannes six years after Blue Is The Warmest Colour won the Palme d’Or. Intermezzo is the second part of a planned trilogy of epic duration: first part Mektoub, My Love Canto Uno — a three-hour story of young love and lust set in the summer of 1994 — premiered at Venice in 2017. Pathé’s Jérome Seydoux produces with Kechiche and Ardavan Safaee.
Contact: Pathé Films
Oh Mercy! (Fr) - Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
French director Desplechin returns to Competition for the fifth time after a five-year hiatus, having premiered his last feature Ismael’s Ghosts out of competition as the opening film in 2017, and My Golden Days as the opening film of Directors’ Fortnight in 2015. Set in his hometown of Roubaix in northern France, the film marks his first foray into the detective thriller genre. Roschdy Zem co-stars as a police detective investigating the Christmas day murder of an old woman, opposite Léa Seydoux and Sara Forestier as two dissolute prime suspects.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (US) - Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Much-anticipated and late to the Competition line-up, Tarantino’s first Cannes bow since 2009’s Inglourious Basterds stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt respectively as a faded TV actor and his stunt double in 1969 Los Angeles. Margot Robbie stars as Sharon Tate, whose murder by Charles Manson’s followers forms the backdrop to events. Tarantino produces with Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Shannon McIntosh. Sony begins a worldwide rollout from July 26.
Contact: Sony Pictures Entertainment sonypictures.com
Pain And Glory (Sp) - Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Pain And Glory is the sixth film by the legendary Spanish director to screen in Competition. Almodovar won the best director award for All About My Mother in 1999 and best screenplay for Volver in 2006. Pain And Glory was released in Spain in March where it grossed a modest $5m for Sony. The film is a highly autobiographical love letter to cinema starring two of Almodovar’s most beloved collaborators: Antonio Banderas, who plays a director looking back on his life and career, and Penelope Cruz who portrays his mother in flashback. Filmnation has sold all major territories on the film. Sony Pictures Classics has US rights.
Contact: Filmnation Entertainment
Parasite (S Kor) - Dir. Bong Joon Ho
After 2017’s English-language Okja, which partly triggered the Cannes-Netflix row, Bong returns to Competition with a Korean-language film starring his frequent collaborator Song Kang-ho. The new tragi-comedy is about an unemployed family that infiltrates a more affluent one, leading to unexpected consequences. Cast includes Lee Sun-kyun (A Hard Day), Jo Yeo-jeong (Obsessed) and Choi Woo-shik (Okja). Among Bong’s previous Cannes outings are Mother (Un Certain Regard 2009) and The Host (Directors’ Fortnight 2006).
Contact: CJ Entertainment
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (Fr) - Dir. Céline Sciamma
Twelve years after taking Un Certain Regard by storm with her debut feature, coming-of-age lesbian romance Water Lilies, France’s Sciamma finally takes her place in Competition. Subsequent films Tomboy and Girlhood premiered at the Berlinale in 2011 and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2014. In a departure from her gritty, contemporary dramas, Sciamma delivers a historical romantic drama set in 18th-century Brittany. Adele Haenel, who co-starred in Water Lilies, plays a reluctant bride-to-be who develops a growing passion for a female artist commissioned to paint her portrait in her final days of freedom.
Contact: mk2 Films
Sibyl (Fr) - Dir Justine Triet
Triet’s Competition debut follows the 2013 drama Age Of Panic (La Bataille De Solferino), shot against the backdrop of real-life presidential election celebrations, and 2016 Cannes Critics’ Week opening film Victoria, aka In Bed With Victoria. This third feature reunites Triet with Victoria’s Virginie Efira in the role of a jaded psychotherapist with aspirations to become a writer, playing opposite Palme d’Or winner Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue Is The Warmest Color) as a troubled young actress who is one of her patients. The impressive cast also includes Sandra Hüller, Gaspard Ulliel and Niels Schneider.
Contact: mk2 Films
Sorry We Missed You (UK-Fr-Bel) - Dir Ken Loach
Loach broke his own Cannes record this year by having his latest feature selected for Competition for an impressive 14th time. His previous outing in 2016, I, Daniel Blake, won Loach his second Palme d’Or. On his latest, the director reteams with regular producer Rebecca O’Brien and writer Paul Laverty, both of UK-based Sixteen Films, on the story of a British delivery driver and his wife who struggle to get by in the current economic climate of short-term contracts. Co-producers on the project are France’s Why Not Productions and Wild Bunch (which also handles sales) with Belgium’s Les Films Du Fleuve. Backers include the BFI and BBC Films.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
The Traitor (It-Fr-Ger-Braz) - Dir Marco Bellocchio
Due to be released in Italy on May 23, the veteran auteur’s film tells the story of Sicilian Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, who testified against the organisation in one of the country’s biggest anti-Mafia trials. Bellocchio was last in Competition 10 years ago with Vincere, which centred on Mussolini’s first wife. The sole Italian entry this year, The Traitor has been described by the 79-year-old director as “neither shrine to Buscetta nor condemnation”. Seller The Match Factory also has a co-production stake.
Contact: The Match Factory
The Whistlers (Rom-Fr) - Dir Corneliu Porumboiu
The Romanian director makes his Competition debut following Un Certain Regard slots for The Treasure (2015) and Police, Adjective (2009), and a Directors’ Fortnight launch for the Camera d’Or-winning 12:08 East Of Bucharest (2006). Previously announced successively under the titles Gomera and The Passenger, the crime tale is set between Romania, Canary Islands and Singapore, and stars Vlad Ivanov (Sunset, Graduation). Bucharest-based 42km Film and Paris-based Les Films du Worso produce. Diaphana and Curzon Artificial Eye release in France and the UK respectively.
Contact: mk2 Films
The Wild Goose Lake (China-Fr) - Dir Diao Yinan
Building on his Berlin Golden Bear win for Black Coal, Thin Ice in 2014, Diao gains his first Cannes Competition spot with his fourth feature, reuniting him with Chinese producer Shen Yang and stars Liao Fan (who won the best actor prize in Berlin) and Gwei Lun Mei. Hu Ge and Wan Qian co-star in the new crime thriller about a gangster who crosses paths with a prostitute while seeking redemption on the run. Memento’s Alexandre Mallet-Guy and Arte France Cinema co-produced the film. In 2007, Diao’s second film Night Train premiered in Un Certain Regard.
Contact: Memento Films
Young Ahmed (Bel-Fr) - Dirs Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
The Cannes veterans are back on the Croisette with a contemporary tale of a Belgian teenager who plots to kill his teacher after becoming radicalised through an extremist interpretation of the Koran. Made through the Dardennes’ company Les Films du Fleuve, Wild Bunch boarded sales ahead of Cannes last year. The brothers have picked up seven prizes from eight Competition appearances, and are one of only eight directors/directing teams to win the Palme d’Or twice — for Rosetta in 1999 and The Child in 2005.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
OUT OF COMPETITION
The Best Years Of A Life (Fr) - Dir Claude Lelouch
Flamboyantly romantic veteran Lelouch, 81, has a hallowed place in French film history, having tried for the Palme d’Or in 1966 with his much-loved A Man And A Woman (reprised in Cannes Classics in 2016). He made a sequel, A Man And A Woman: Twenty Years Later in 1986; this new chapter once again reunites his revered stars Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Lelouch produces The Best Years Of A Life alongside Victor Hadida and the late Samuel Hadida for Les Films 13, Davis Films and France 2 Cinéma.
Contact: Metropolitan Filmexport
Diego Maradona (UK) - Dir. Asif Kapadia
Kapadia returns to Cannes four years after launching Amy Winehouse documentary and eventual Oscar winner Amy in an out of competition slot. The first feature documentary from the filmmaker focusing on a subject who is still alive, Diego Maradona tracks the Argentinian footballer from humble origins to worldwide fame, with particular focus on his years playing for Italy’s SSC Napoli in the 1980s. The On The Corner production is backed by Lorton Entertainment and Film4, and reunites Kapadia with Senna and Amy producer James Gay-Rees, editor Chris King and composer Antonio Pinto. HBO has acquired US theatrical, TV and streaming rights.
Contact: Altitude Film Sales
La Belle Epoque (Fr) - Dir Nicolas Bedos
Cannes newcomer Bedos made his name on the French stage, radio and TV, then graduated to directing for the big screen with his 2017 comedy Mr & Mrs Adelman, in which he co-starred with his partner Doria Tillier. She features again alongside Daniel Auteuil, Guillaume Canet and Fanny Ardant in this Les Films du Kiosque production, about a man who undertakes a novelty ‘theme experience’ — an artificial recreation of the glory days of his life.
Contact: Orange Studio; Pathé Films
Rocketman (US-UK) - Dir Dexter Fletcher
With a producer team led by Rocket’s David Furnish and Marv’s Matthew Vaughn, this R-rated ‘warts and all’ musical fantasy recounts the rise to fame and substance-abusing flameout of Elton John (Kingsman star Taron Egerton). Fletcher, fresh from his directing contribution to Bohemian Rhapsody, directs the title, which Paramount distributes in the US and multiple territories, and begins its rollout into cinemas on May 22. It also stars Jamie Bell as lyricist Bernie Taupin and Richard Madden as the singer’s lover/manager John Reid.
Contact: Paramount Pictures
Too Old To Die Young — North Of Hollywood, West Of Hell (US) - Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Refn returns to Cannes with this Amazon series after three straight appearances in Competition: Drive in 2011, Only God Forgives in 2013 and The Neon Demon in 2016. Too Old To Die Young — North Of Hollywood, West Of Hell is only the third series to appear in official selection (following 2017’s Twin Peaks and Top Of The Lake: China Girl) — and the first from a streaming giant. Miles Teller stars as a detective entangled in the criminal underworld of Los Angeles, with Refn directing all 10 episodes (two will screen in Cannes). Too Old… debuts on Amazon Prime on June 14.
Contact: Amazon Studios
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
5B (US) - Dir. Dan Krauss
Premiering at Doc Stories in San Francisco last November, 5B is named for the ward at San Francisco General Hospital where Aids patients were treated in the 1980s. Bono will travel to Cannes to show support for this documentary, which tells the stories of care-givers helping deal with the Aids crisis. Director Krauss is Oscar-nominated for shorts The Death Of Kevin Carter: Casualty Of The Bang Bang Club (2006) and Extremis (2016). Rupert Maconick produces for Saville Productions.
Contact: Rupert Maconick, Saville Productions
Chicuarotes (Mex) Dir Gael Garcia Bernal
Bernal’s feature debut Deficit appeared out of competition at Cannes in 2007, and he has since directed several shorts and episodes for TV series Mozart In The Jungle and Here On Earth. Chicuarotes, described as “an affectionate portrayal” of Mexican teenagers and “a deep dive into Mexican society”, is produced by Bernal with his La Corriente del Golfo partner and friend Diego Luna, and Marta Nunez Puerto.
Contact: Pulse Films
The Cordillera Of Dreams (Chile) - Dir. Patricio Guzman
Following a 2010 Cannes Special Screenings bow for Guzman’s documentary Nostalgia For The Light and a Berlin premiere for his 2015 follow-up The Pearl Button, the director continues his poetic investigations into what he calls “the vast revealing backdrop of Chile’s past and recent history”. Guzman’s 47-year career as a documentary filmmaker also includes The Pinochet Case (2001) and Salvador Allende (out of competition, Cannes 2004).
Contact: Pyramide International
Family Romance, LLC (Jap-Ger) - Dir. Werner Herzog
The prolific German director presents a Japanese-language film shot in Tokyo in spring/summer 2018 with non-professional actors. The story follows a man who is hired to impersonate the missing father of a 12-year-old girl. Herzog, who marked half a century since the release of his first feature Signs Of Life last year, has appeared in Cannes more than 10 times, winning the Fipresci director and script prizes in 1975 for The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser and the director award in 1982 for Fitzcarraldo. He was last on the Croisette in 2017, receiving the Carrosse d’Or during Directors’ Fortnight.
Contact: Film Constellation
For Sama (UK-US) - Dirs Waad Al Kateab, Edward Watts
Coming to Cannes from SXSW, where the film won the grand jury and audience awards for best documentary, this urgent work takes the form of a video letter to Al Kateab’s young daughter as she gives her account of the shelling of Aleppo in 2016, and working with her husband — founder of a volunteer hospital caring for a population under fire. The film is a production of the UK’s ITN Productions and Channel 4 News, and PBS’s Frontline programme.
Contact: Autlook Filmsales
Ice On Fire (US) - Dir Leila Conners
Conners previously made politically minded documentary features We The People 2.0 (2016) and The Arrow Of Time (2017) — the latter celebrating Mikhail Gorbachev’s role in nuclear arms reductions and the end of the Cold War. Her latest, which quizzes scientists and “visionaries” in nine different countries, explores pressing environmental problems and the potential to reverse climate change, showing how carbon could be drawn out of the world’s atmosphere. The film is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, HBO and Tree Media Group.
Contact: Melissa Murphy, HBO Enterprises
Let It Be Law (Arg) - Dir Juan Solanas
Argentinian director Solanas returns to Cannes after attending in 2005 with Un Certain Regard grand prix winner Northeast, and 2003 short film jury prize winner The Man Without A Head. His new film is a documentary about clandestine abortions in Argentina and a movement that has sprung up to change the law.
Contact: Juan Solanas, Les Films du Sud
Share (US) - Dir Pippa Bianco
Bianco has expanded the theme from her 2015 short of the same name that won the Cinéfondation award in Cannes four years ago. Her feature premiered in Sundance and is a thriller about a 16-year-old (2018 Screen Star of Tomorrow Rhianne Barreto) who discovers a disturbing video from a night she does not remember. Cast also includes Charlie Plummer (Lean On Pete) and Nicholas Galitzine (Handsome Devil). A24 will distribute the HBO Films production in the US.
Contact: A24 Films
To Be Alive And Know It (Fr) Dir Alain Cavalier
In the mid-1990s, veteran French director Cavalier (1986 Cannes jury prize-winner Thérese) moved away from conventional filmmaking to a more personal, writerly form of video work. Eight years after Competition title Pater, Cavalier returns to documenting his collaboration with the late novelist/screenwriter Emmanuele Bernheim (known to cinephiles for her work on Francois Ozon films including 5x2 and Swimming Pool). Produced by Michel Seydoux for Camera One, co-produced by Arte France Cinéma, the film promises an idiosyncratic contemplation of art and mortality.
Contact: Pathé
Tommaso (US-It) Dir Abel Ferrara
This under-the-radar feature is one of two overlapping projects that pair Bronx director Ferrara and leading man Willem Dafoe, fresh from his Oscar-nominated performance in At Eternity’s Gate (the other is the long-gestating Siberia). Co-produced by Italian company Simila(r) and US outfit Washington Square Films, Tommaso is described by the latter as “an improvised drama of doubt and disconnection” about a “Ferrara-like American artist living in Rome” (home to the director for the past four years), in which the actor plays opposite Ferrara’s wife and daughter.
Contact: The Match Factory
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (S Kor) - Dir. Lee Won-tae
Second-time director Lee’s first Cannes outing is an action thriller revolving around a gang boss who teams up with a detective to take down a serial killer. The film stars Train To Busan’s Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok) as the gangster, Kim Moo-yeol (Forgotten) as the cop and Kim Seong-gyu (The Outlaws) as the devil of the title. Newly launched K-Movie Entertainment handles international sales. Lee’s debut was 2017’s period prison drama Man Of Will.
Contact: K-Movie Entertainment
Lux Aeterna (Fr) - Dir. Gaspar Noé
A year after Noé’s Climax premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, the 55-year-old enfant terrible is back on the Croisette, this time with this 50-minute late addition to Midnight Screenings. Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as two actresses “on a film set telling stories about witches” in this mini feature that is an essay on “the actor’s craft and the art of filmmaking”. Lux Aeterna is produced by Vixens and Noé’s Les Cinémas de la Zone with the support of Saint Laurent.
Contact: Antoine Guilhem, Wild Bunch
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