Cannes Film Festival general delegate Thierry Fremaux and festival president Gilles Jacob lead a press conference for the 2014 iteration of the fest.
Credit: Getty Images
The Cannes Film Festival begins in less than a month, meaning it’s time at last to announce what those who planned to attend months ago are actually going to see. As expected, it’s a host of the latest from established masters (or at least alleged masters), with a litter of underdogs confined to the “Un Certain Regard” slate.
Those attending the May 14-25 fest can expect to peep the latest from such luminaries as Olivier Assayas (“Clouds of Sila Maria”), Ken Loach (“Jimmy’s Hall”), David Cronenberg (“Maps to the Stars,” his second outing with Robert Pattinson), Mike Leigh (“Mr. Turner”), Abderrahmane Sissako (“Timbuktu”), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“Two Days, One Night”) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (“Winter Sleep”). Jean-Luc Godard will return with his latest 3-D work, “Goodbye to Language.”
Also on the main slate will be the newer (or newish) batch of greats. Xavier Dolan, the 25-year-old wunderkind of “Heartbeats” and “Laurence Anyways,” brings forth his fourth feature, “Mommy,” which is not a sequel (or prequel) to his debut, “I Killed My Mother.”
Bertrand Bonello, who broke through three years ago with the stunning prostitute saga “House of Pleasures” (otherwise known by the less porny title “House of Tolerance”), returns with “Saint Laurent,” his film on the fashion icon, which is dueling, it seems, with another YSL biopic, “Yves Saint Laurent,” about to be released stateside. Apart from being a master stylist, Bonello also scored, for his version, Gaspard Ulliel, Louis Garrel and Lea Seydoux, so we’ll see which one is better.
For some, one of bigger returns will be Michel Hazanavicius, the director of the Oscar-gobbling “The Artist.” His latest is not a pastiche, but a remake of Fred Zinnemann’s 1948 drama “The Search,” starring Berenice Bejo and Annette Bening.
Also of note is Atom Egoyan’s “The Captive.” Egoyan has had a hard time since “The Sweet Hereafter” won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1997. (For one, his West Memphis Three film, “Devil’s Knot,” has been plagued with hardly encouraging reviews.) Does this one’s inclusion in the Main Slate mean it’s a return to form? For whatever it’s worth, it stars Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman and Rosario Dawson.
The opening night film is Olivier Dahan’s “Grace of Monaco,” starring Nicole Kidman. The film has suffered no shortage of production problems, including Harvey Weinstein characteristically muscling Dahan away from the project and other woes. Still, whatever its problems, it may be a superior opening night offering than 2006’s “The Da Vinci Code.”
In the out-of-competition “Un Certain Regard” section, there’s a pile of possible greats; indeed, sometimes the best films are chucked into the child’s table section of the fest. Some that stick out include a trio directed by actors: Mathieu Amalric’s “The Blue Room” (Amalric won Best Director at Cannes in 2010 for “On Tour”), Asia Argento’s “Incompresa” and Ryan Gosling’s “Lost River.”
The full lineup is here:
Opener
“Grace of Monaco” (Olivier Dahan, France-U.S.-Belgium-Italy)
Competition
“The Captive” (Atom Egoyan, Canada)
“Clouds of Sils Maria” (Olivier Assayas, France-Switzerland-Germany)
“Foxcatcher” (Bennett Miller, U.S.)
“Goodbye to Language” (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)
“The Homesman” (Tommy Lee Jones, U.S.)
“Jimmy’s Hall”
“Leviafan” (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia)
“Le Meraviglie” (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy-Switzerland-Germany)
“Maps to the Stars” (David Cronenberg, U.S.)
“Mommy” (Xavier Dolan, France-Canada)
“Saint Laurent” (Bertrand Bonello, France)
“The Search” (Michel Hazanavicius, France)
“Still the Water” (Naomi Kawase, Japan)
“Mr. Turner” (Mike Leigh, U.K.)
“Timbuktu” (Abderrahmane Sissako, France)
“Two Days, One Night” (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium)
“Wild Tales” (Damian Szifron, Argentina-Spain)
“Winter Sleep” (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey-Germany-France)
Out of Competition
“Coming Home” (Zhang Yimou, China)
“How to Train Your Dragon 2” (Dean DeBlois, U.S.)
“Les Gens du Monde” (Yves Jeuland, France)
Un Certain Regard
“Amour fou” (Jessica Hausner)
“Bird People” (Pascale Ferran)
“The Blue Room” (Mathieu Amalric)
“Charlie’s Country” (Rolf de Heer)
“Dohee-ya” (July Jung)
“Eleanor Rigby” (Ned Benson)
“Fantasia” (Wang Chao)
“Harcheck mi headro” (Keren Yedaya)
“Hermosa juventud” (Jaime Rosales)
“Incompresa” (Asia Argento)
“Jauja” (Lisandro Alonso)
“Lost River” (Ryan Gosling)
“Party Girl” (Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis) (OPENER)
“Run” (Philippe Lacote)
“The Salt of the Earth” (Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado)
“Snow in Paradise” (Andrew Hulme)
“Titli” (Kanu Behl)
“Tourist” (Ruben Ostlund)
Midnight screenings
“The Rover” (David Michod)
“The Salvation” (Kristian Levring)
“The Target” (Yoon Hong-seung)
Special screenings
“The Bridges of Sarajevo” (various directors)
“Maidan” (Sergei Loznitsa)
“Red Army” (Polsky Gabe)
“Silvered Water” (Mohammed Ossama and Wiam Bedirxan)
“Caricaturistes – Fantassins de la democratie” (Stephanie Valloatto)
