Cannes 2009

[ellipsis7]

Lineup announced....

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

OPENER
"Up," U.S., Pete Docter, Bob Peterson

CLOSER
"Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky," France, Jan Kounen

IN COMPETITION
"Bright Star," Australia-U.K.-France, Jane Campion
"Spring Fever," China-France, Lou Ye
"Antichrist," Denmark-Sweden-France-Italy, Lars von Trier
"Enter the Void," France, Gaspar Noe
"Face," France-Taiwan-Netherlands-Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang
"Les Herbes folles," France-Italy, Alain Resnais
"In the Beginning," France, Xavier Giannoli
"A Prophet," France, Jacques Audiard
"The White Ribbon," Germany-Austria-France, Michael Haneke
"Vengeance," Hong Kong-France-U.S., Johnnie To
"The Time That Remains," Israel-France-Belgium-Italy, Elia Suleiman
"Vincere," Italy-France, Marco Bellocchio
"Kinatay," Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
"Thirst," South Korea-U.S., Park Chan-wook
"Broken Embraces," Spain, Pedro Almodovar
"Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," Spain, Isabel Coixet
"Fish Tank," U.K.-Netherlands, Andrea Arnold
"Looking for Eric," U.K.-France-Belgium-Italy, Ken Loach
"Inglourious Basterds," U.S., Quentin Tarantino
"Taking Woodstock," U.S., Ang Lee

OUT OF COMPETITION
"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," Canada-France, Terry Gilliam
"The Army of Crime," France, Robert Guediguian
"Agora," Spain, Alejandro Amenabar

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
"A Town Called Panic," Belgium, Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar
"Ne te retourne pas," France-Belgium-Luxembourg-Italy, Marina de Van
"Drag Me to Hell," U.S., Sam Raimi

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
"Petition," China, Zhao Liang
"L'epine dans le coeur," France, Michel Gondry
"Min ye," France-Mali, Souleyumane Cisse
"Jaffa," Israel-France-Germany, Keren Yedaya
"Manila," Philippines, Adolfo Alix Jr., Raya Martin
"My Neighbor, My Killer," U.S., Anne Aghion

UN CERTAIN REGARD
Bong Joon Ho - "Mother"
Alain Cavalier - "Irene"
Lee Daniels - "Precious"
Denis Dercourt- "Demain Des L'Aube"
Heitor Dhalia - "Adrift"
Bahman Ghobadi - "Nobody Knows About Persian Cats"
Ciro Guerra - "The Wind Journeys"
Mia Hansen-Love - "Le Pere De Mes Enfants"
Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Propescu and Ioanna Uricaru - "Tales From The Golden Age"
Nikolay Khomeriki - "Tale In The Darkness"
Yorgos Lanthimos - "Dogtooth"
Pavel Lounguine - "Tzar"
Raya Martin - "Independencia"
Corneliu Porumboiu - "Police, Adjective"
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang - "Nymph"
Joao Pedro Rodrigues - "To Die Like A Man"
Haim Tabakman - "Eyes Wide Open"
Warwick Thornton - "Samson & Deliah"
Jean Van De Velde - "The Silent Army"
Hirokazu Kore-ede - "Air Doll"

It's an heavyweight Jury too...

Competition Jury:

Isabelle Huppert, president (actress, France)
Asia Argento (acress, director, screenwriter, Italy)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan (director, screenwriter, actor,Turkey)
Lee Chang-Dong (director, author, screenwriter, Korea)
James Gray (director, sreenwriter, US)
Hanif Kureishi (author, screenwriting, UK)
Shu Qi (actress, Taiwan)
Robin Wright Penn (actress, US)

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Now it's time to begin baseless speculation based on the presumed personal tastes of the jury members. I predict Vengeance will win a prize because I bet Ceylan is a Johnny Halliday fan from way back.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I thought Lou Ye had been banned from film making for five years after Summer Palace.

The Cannes poster is a tribute to L'Avventura; a rear shot of Vitti.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I thought Lou Ye had been banned from film making for five years after Summer Palace.

There's no way of actually enforcing this, short of throwing him in prison or having agents shadow him 24/7 for half a decade. They can freeze him out of the official state-linked film system, but plenty of Chinese films are made outside of it every year. Suzhou River was one of them.

[Dr Amicus]

Blimey - the competition line-up is an auteurist's fantasy come to life! That's one of the biggest collection of 'names' I can remember for quite a few years.

Amongst mant others, I'm particularly looking forward to the Arnold - Red Road was a damn fine debut.

[ellipsis7]

The Cannes poster is a tribute to L'Avventura; a rear shot of Vitti.

Wow!... Makes a change from last year's David Lynch image...

And this is the moving version of the poster, featuring a 6 second clip of the film showing the same scene... Is this a first for Cannes?....

[Fierias]

And is that a Jeremy Blake/Punch-Drunk Love scopitone for the color? Looks like it to me.

[foggy eyes]

Disregarding the fair few films/names I haven't heard of yet, this line-up doesn't look particularly exciting on first glance. Very much looking forward to new Tsai & Resnais, nice to see new To & Haneke, intrigued by Raya Martin & Kore-eda (etc.), but then the riches begin to tail off... The panel is great, though (apart from the damb squibs of Hanif Kureishi & Robin Wright Penn) - who thought of putting Shu Qi & James Gray in a room together?!

[colinr0380]

The panel is great, though (apart from the damb squibs of Hanif Kureishi & Robin Wright Penn) - who thought of putting Shu Qi & James Gray in a room together?!

I often wish that a couple of months after the festival there was a DVD released containing footage of the jury deliberating about the films - I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in getting to watch the group dynamics and agree or disagree with the reasoning behind coming to a decision. Although that might demystify the decision making process somewhat and might cause people to think twice before becoming jury members if they know that their conversations or arguments are being filmed! Also the times I've seen similar 'jury room' footage on programmes for the Booker Prize and such, the conversations can seem rather stilted and played for the benefit of the camera! (maybe re-staged for the cameras?)

[Cde.]

And is that a Jeremy Blake/Punch-Drunk Love scopitone for the color? Looks like it to me.

I'd say it's just inspired by those, since Jeremy Blake died two years ago.

[Antoine Doinel]

Does anyone have any info on the Gondry film? Can't seem to find anything about it anywhere; all I know is that it's a documentary,

[ellipsis7]

Does anyone have any info on the Gondry film? Can't seem to find anything about it anywhere; all I know is that it's a documentary,

According to TF1...

L'Epine dans le coeur, un documentaire su sa tante

Thorn in the Heart, a documentary on his aunt... Who is his aunt - anyone we should know?... Ah this is it...

That may seem like a lot for a professional filmmaker, but it’s time to add one more project onto the fire: a documentary of Michel’s aunt. This news, while not entirely new, comes from the MTV Movies Blog.

Here Michel talks to MTV about his aunt, a schoolteacher with a 50-year career: “My aunt’s an amazing woman. She’s 80 years old. Most of the schools she taught in don’t exist anymore but we went on location to them. I like the idea of going somewhere with a camera and not knowing what you’re going to get.”

The film will apparently utilize animation to recreate some locations that are no longer there.

[Antoine Doinel]

Thanks ellipsis. Sounds like an intriguing project. Interesting that's it been largely kept under wraps -- details on the film aren't even up at IMDB.

[Nothing]

Most interested in the Ghobadi and the Suleiman (such a shame that Ghobadi never seems to make it into Competition). The Resnais to a degree, even though he's past his prime. 5-10 years ago I would have added von Trier to that grouping. Although not a fan, I've heard that Enter the Void is more personal, more experimental and vastly more ambitious than Noe's earlier work, so cautiously interested to see that too. One misses Dumont and Breillat.

[ryan11]

I think someone's been reading my diary. The following films account for almost all of my most anticipated for the coming year or so. Jesus, what a line-up for a single festival.

CLOSER
"Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky," France, Jan Kounen

IN COMPETITION
"Antichrist," Denmark-Sweden-France-Italy, Lars von Trier
"Face," France-Taiwan-Netherlands-Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang
"The White Ribbon," Germany-Austria-France, Michael Haneke
"Vengeance," Hong Kong-France-U.S., Johnnie To
"Thirst," South Korea-U.S., Park Chan-wook


UN CERTAIN REGARD
Bong Joon Ho - "Mother"
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang - "Nymph"
Hirokazu Kore-ede - "Air Doll"

[Creation]

I didn't think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was close enough in post to make it to Cannes. That's exciting..... right guys?

This lineup, much more so than last year, makes me want to throw away the thousands of dollars it would cost to go to Cannes.

[Jeff]

I didn't think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was close enough in post to make it to Cannes. That's exciting..... right guys?

Maybe. It's been finished and shown to potential buyers for several months. No U.S. distributor has been willing to pick it up.

[Creation]

I didn't think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was close enough in post to make it to Cannes. That's exciting..... right guys?

Maybe. It's been finished and shown to potential buyers for several months. No U.S. distributor has been willing to pick it up.

I heard about the distribution problems, but for some reason I though they needed more funding to finish the film. I was wrong

[peerpee]

Anyone know whether Dumont's HADEWIJCH was ready in time? or... was it passed over?

[Dadapass]

Anyone know whether Dumont's HADEWIJCH was ready in time? or... was it passed over?

Wasn't Twentynine Palms excluded too or was it just not complete at the time?

Does anyone have any info on this film? I've only found this.

[Nothing]

Twentynine Palms was rejected and he had to drastically recut the ending of Flandres to secure a Competition spot in 2006. He wouldn't accept anything other than Competition, I'm pretty certain of that. I also can't imagine that the film wasn't ready on time. There are only so many places available for French films, so he wouldn't have been directly competing with the hacks on this list like Arnold, Lee, Park and Campion but... yeah.

[Kirkinson]

I didn't think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was close enough in post to make it to Cannes. That's exciting..... right guys?

Maybe. It's been finished and shown to potential buyers for several months. No U.S. distributor has been willing to pick it up.

It was just finished at the end of March.

[Oedipax]

...he had to drastically recut the ending of Flandres to secure a Competition spot in 2006.

How does this process work, do you have more details? Do you mean someone (Gilles Jacob or whoever) said to Dumont: "Do ______ to the ending of the film, and we'll take another look"? Cut a scene they didn't like, something like that? I'm perhaps being quite naïve, but I had no idea such things occurred with Cannes.

[ellipsis7]

Currently - the chief selector Thierry Fremeaux and advisors - will see a lot of films, many of them works in progress, so it is possible for input during this process, and the filmmakers to bring their film back to the selectors - there's an ongoing relationship there, especially with favoured filmmakers... It's not unknown for the final neg cut to be made as the festival opens, and the first prints rushed, hardly dry from the labs, to a screening in the Palais... The Faber and Faber published book CANNES by Corless & Darke gives a reasonable impression of how it all works...

To give an idea, this year...

Ils ont visionné 1670 long-métrages pour parvenir à en sélectionner 52 représentant 32 pays différents

That's about a 3% chance of being selected for the average filmmaker... So I suppose if the Selectors make a helpful 'suggestion', filmmakers tend to listen...

[T99]

It's very sad to see Dumont being neglected by Cannes. Especially considering that his films have such a hard time finding decent exposure elsewhere.

Btw, there are some nice production images of Hadewijch at http://www.tadrart.com/tessalit/hadewijch/index.html