Set to kill in Cannes

An incomplete line-up was announced yesterday for the 68th Cannes Film Festival, with three titles from Asia among the main competition, and possibly more to come.

Among the Asian contenders is a rare martial-arts film, “The Assassins”, by New Taiwanese Cinema stalwart Hou Hsiao-Hsien and starring Shu Qi as a hired killer who falls for one of her targets. The other Asian competitors for the top-prize Palme d’Or include “Mountains May Depart” by China’s Jia Zhang-ke and “Our Little Sister” (“Umimachi Diary”) by Japan’s Hirokazu Koreeda.

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a three-time past winner at Cannes, had been tipped as a possibility for this year’s fest with his recently completed feature “Love in Khon Kaen”. It wasn’t among the titles announced yesterday. However, some competition slots remain open.

Announced in Paris by festival director Thierry Fremaux and new president Pierre Lescure, the opening film will be “La Tete Haute” (“Standing Tall”), a drama by Emmanuelle Bercot and starring Catherine Deneuve as a judge who tries to intervene in a juvenile delinquency case. It is the second opening film to be directed by a woman, following 1987’s “A Man in Love” by Diane Kurys.

According to Variety, Fremaux had sought a French film to open this year’s fest after a string of glitzy Hollywood curtain-raisers such as “Midnight in Paris”, “Moonrise Kingdom”, “The Great Gatsby” and “Grace of Monaco”. The last French opening film at Cannes was 2003’s “Fanfan la Tulipe”.

As usual, there are three competition slots reserved for French films. Feminist auteur Maiwenn, who won the Jury Prize in 2011 with “Polisse”, returns with the marriage chronicle “Mon Roi”, which stars opening-film director Bercot along with Vincent Cassel and Louis Garrel. And another past winner, “Un Prophet” director Jacques Audiard has “Dheepan”, about a Tamil refugee struggling on the streets of Paris. And Stephane Brize joins the competition for the first time with “La loi du marche”, starring Vincent Lindon as a supermarket security guard faced with a moral dilemma.

Hollywood talent will likely tread the red carpet, with the latest movies starring Cate Blanchett, Rachel Weisz and Matthew McConaughey among those competing.

Blanchett will appear in director Todd Haynes’ “Carol”, a lesbian love story set in New York and also starring Rooney Mara. Weisz will be in two movies: Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Giovinezza” (“The Early Years”), also featuring Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, and “The Lobster”, also starring Colin Farrel and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos of Greece. 

McConaughey is featured in Gus Van Sant’s “The Sea of Trees” with Naomi Watts. Ken Watanabe also stars in the drama, which is about two men meeting in an infamous Japanese suicide spot on Mount Fuji.

The competition also has Australian adaptation of “Macbeth”, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.

The out-of-competition line-up also has Hollywood talent, with slots for the new Pixar animation “Inside Out” and Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man”, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Parker Posey.

And a midnight slot has been set aside for “Amy”, a documentary about the late troubled “Rehab” singer Amy Winehouse.

The festival has been hit with criticism about the lack of female-directed movies in the competition line-ups in past years, but this year the fest announced a new “Women in Motion” initiative, with conferences, events and awards to take place alongside the festival starting next year.

Aside from the opener, prior to yesterday’s announcement, the only other film that had been confirmed for the line-up was “Mad Max: Fury Road”, a reboot of the post-apocalyptic Australian action franchise. Replacing Mel Gibson in the lead is Tom Hardy. Charlize Theron also stars in “Fury Road”, which is directed by George Miller, who has helmed the franchise since it started in 1979.

The main competition jury this year is led by sibling directors Joel and Ethan Coen, while Isabella Rosellini heads the Un Certain Regard panel. She will also present the Swedish documentary about her mother, “Ingrid Bergman – In Her Words”. A classic photo of Bergman also adorns the festival’s poster this year.

The 68th Cannes Film Festival will run from May 13 to 24.

 

 FESTIVAL LINE-UP

  Competition

“Dheepan”, Jacques Audiard

“A Simple Man” (“La Loi Du Marche”), Stephane Brize

“Marguerite and Julien”, Valerie Donzelli

“The Tale of Tales” (“Il Racconto Dei Racconti”), Matteo Garrone

“Carol”, Todd Haynes

“The Assassin” (“Nie Yinniang”), Hou Hsiao Hsien

“Mountains May Depart” (“Shan He Gu Ren”), Jia Zhangke

“Our Little Sister” (“Umimachi Diary”), Hirokazu Koreeda

“Macbeth”, Justin Kurzel

“The Lobster”, Yorgos Lanthimos

“Mon Roi”, Maiwenn

“Mia Madre”, Nanni Moretti

“Son of Saul” (“Saul Fia”), Laszlo Nemes

“La Giovinezza” (“The Early Years”), Paolo Sorrentino

“Louder Than Bombs”, Joachim Trier

“Sea of Trees”, Gus Van Sant

“Sicario”, Denis Villeneuve

 

 Out of competition

“Standing Tall” (“La Tete Haute”), Emmanuelle Bercot (opening film)

“Mad Max: Fury Road”, George Miller

“Irrational Man”, Woody Allen

“Inside Out”, Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen

“The Little Prince”, Mark Osborne

 

 

Un Certain Regard

“Fly Away Solo” (“Masaan”), Neeraj Ghaywan

“Rams” (“Hruter”), Grimur Hakonarson

“Journey to the Shore” (“Kishibe No Tabi”), Kiyoshi Kurosawa

“I Am a Soldier” (“Je Suis un Soldat”), Laurent Larivire

“The High Sun” (“Zvizdan”), Dalibor Matanic

“The Other Side”, Roberto Minervini

“One Floor Below” (“Un Etaj Mai Jos”), Radu Muntean

“The Shameless” (“MuRoeHan”), Oh Seunguk

“The Chosen Ones” (“Las Elegidas”), David Pablos

“Nahid”, Ida Panahandeh

“The Treasure” (“Comoara”), Corneliu Porumboiu

“The Fourth Direction” (“Chauthi Koot”), Gurvinder Singh

“Madonna”, Shin Suwon

“Maryland”, Alice Winocour