The Official Selection for the 66th Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled and noticeable absentees in the list of 19 Main Comp films and the Un Certain Regard section include Terrence Malick, Ari Folman’s The Congress, Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, Michael Rowe’s Manto Acuifero, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Diary of a Young Boy, Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language 3D, Serge Bozon’s Tip Top, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, Corneliu Porumboiu’s Nine Minute Interval, Michel & Vicky Franco’s In the Eyes and not surprisingly, a film which might have become a colony instead in Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau. All of these may trickle into the Directors’ Fortnight section, or might join Steve McQueen on the Lido in Venice.
In the Main Comp selection plenty that were targeted as likely candidates were included, and while we were thinking this was the year of the U.S. (five titles if you include the opener), it is most definitely the year of the French. Among the eyebrow-raising additions, Amat Escalante make the huge step up with Heli (see pic above), the same can be said for Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (Un Chateau en Italie), Arnaud des Pallières (Michael Kohlhaas which we predicted could find support… but not this kind of support), Alex Van Warmerdam’s Borgman (which wasn’t totally off our radar) and finally a new film from Jia Zhangke in Touch of Sin (with info so scarce, the film not the filmmaker was somewhat off our radar).
In the Special Screenings, James Toback brings his mockumentary on Cannes with Seduced and Abandoned and in other surprises, James Gray is technically not the only filmmaker with a pair of films this year, Roman Polanski will unveil Venus in Fur in the top section and Weekend of a Champion, a never-released 1971 portrait of the legendary Formula 1 race car driving Champion Jackie Stewart on the weekend of his victory at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. Continuing in the sport-themed docus, Stephen Frears comes armed with Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight. Here’s the complete Main Comp, Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings for 2013 (look for a couple of last minute title changes) and look for a possible add on or two before the start of the fest.
Only God Forgives, dir Nicolas Winding Refn
Borgman, dir Alex Van Warmerdam
La Grande Bellezza, dir Paolo Sorrentino
Behind the Candelabra, dir Steven Soderbergh
La Venua a la Fourrure, dir Roman Polanski
Nebraska, dir Alexander Payne
Jeune & Jolie, dir Francois Ozon
Wara No Tate, dir Takashi Miike
La Vie D’Adele, dir Abdellatif Kechiche
Soshite Chichi Ni Naru, dir Kore-Eda Hirokazu
Tian Zhu Ding, dir Zhangke Jia
Grisgris, dir Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
The Immigrant, dir James Gray
Le Passé, dir Asghar Farhadi
Heli, dir Amat Escalante
Jimmy P, dir Arnaud Desplechin
Michael Kohlhaas, dir Arnaud des Pallières
Inside Llewyn Davis, dir Joel and Ethan Coen
Un Chateau en Italie, dir Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
Special Screenings
Otdat Konci, dir Taisia Igumentseva
Seduced and Abandoned, dir James Toback
Weekend of a Champion, dir Roman Polanski
Stop the Pounding Heart, dir Robero Minervini
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, dir Stephen Frears
Midnight Screenings
Blind Detective, dir Johnnie To
Monsoon Shootout, dir Amit Kumar
Out of Competition
Blood Ties, dir Guillaume Canet
All is Lost, dir J.C Chandor
