KIDMAN, HAYNES, COPPOLA, HANEKE EARN COMPETITION SLOTS AT CANNES 2017

A Virtual Reality feature from Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu, TV projects from festival favourites Jane Campion and David Lynch and the final film from the late Abbas Kiarostami are amongst the works to feature at the 70^th Festival de Cannes, it was announced by festival heads Thiery Fremaux and Pierre Lescue at the official press conference in Cannes.

Playing to the gathered press corp, President of the Festival de Cannes Lescue announced the imminent release of a special edition book entitled These Years, comprising observations of the festival experience by 58 learned journalists, before handing the announcement duties over to his offsider. The popular General Delegate Fremaux informed the global audience that this years event, kicking off May 17 under Jury President Pedro Almodovar, would feature 49 works from 29 countries, including nine feature debuts and visions from 12 female directors.

The 18 In Competition films are:
Wonderstruck, Todd Haynes
Le Redoutable, Michel Hazanavicius
The Day After, Hong Sangsoo
Radiance, Naomi Kawase
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos
A Gentle Creature, Sergei Loznitsa
Jupiter’s Moon, Kornél Mundruczó
L’Amant Double, François Ozon
You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay
Good Time, Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie
Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev
The Meyerowitz Stories, Noah Baumbach
In The Fade, Fatih Akin
Okja, Bong Joon-Ho
120 Heartbeats Per Minute, Robin Campillo
The Beguiled, Sofia Coppola
Rodin, Jacques Doillon
Happy End, Michael Haneke

Australian Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman is shaping up as the centrepiece of the 70th anniversary celebrations, with no less than four titles at the festival - Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled (pictured, below) and Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of A Sacred Deer screening In Competition; John Cameron Mitchell's How to Talk to Girls at Parties slated Out of Competition; and, a guest slot in Top of The Lake: China Girl for her Portrait of A Lady director, Jane Campion.
 

The Annonce de la selection officielle got off to a surprising start with the news that Iñárritu would present his VR film, Carne y arena. Other Special Screening news included bigscreen previews of Campion’s Top of The Lake Season 2 and Lynch’s Twin Peaks revival. Abbas Kiarostami's 24 Frames, the project he was working on at the time of his passing, will be presented in full. The Midnight Screening line-up includes two films from the booming South Korean genre industry, Jung Byung-Gil’s The Villainess and Byun Sung-Hyun’s The Merciless; the third slot will be filled by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire’s Prayer Before Dawn.

Out of Competition titles are:
Blade of the Immortal, Takashi Miike
How to Talk to Girls at Parties, John Cameron Mitchell
Visages, Villages, JR and Agnès Varda
Opening Night honours have been bestowed upon the Out of Competition selection Les Fantomes D’Ismael (Ismael’s Ghosts) from director Arnaud Desplechin (pictured, below; stars Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Un Certain Regard titles are:
Barbara, Mathieu Amalric
The Desert Bride, Cecilia Atán, Valeria Pivato
Jeune Femme, Léonor Serraille
Dregs, Mohammad Rasoulof
The Nature Of Time, Karim Moussaoui
Before We Vanish, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Out, Gyorgy Kristof
Directions, Stephan Komandarev
Western, Valeska Grisebach
April’s Daughter, Michel Franco
Lucky, Sergio Castellitto
L’atelier, Laurent Cantet
Beauty and the Dogs, Kaouther Ben Hania
Closeness, Kantemir Balagov
After The War, Annarita Zambrano
Wind River, Taylor Sheridan

Prominent amongst the Special Screening line-up is An Inconvenient Sequel (pictured, below), Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s follow-up to the 2006 documentary hit. It was hinted that Al Gore, frontperson for the climate change movement, may attend.
Other event pics include:
Claire’s Camera, Hong Sangsoo
12 Jours, Raymond Depardon
They, Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
Promised Land, Eugene Jarecki
Napalm, Claude Lanzmann
Demons In Paradise, Jude Ratman
Sea Sorrow, Vanessa Redgrave