Cannes 2012: ten Europeans to vie for the Palme d’Or

by Fabien Lemercier

19/04/2012 - Europe and North America dominate the list of the 22 films selected for the competition at the 65th Cannes Film Festival (from May 16 to 27) this year, for which the official selection was revealed at midday in Paris by the festival’s general delegate Thierry Frémaux. After a flamboyant 2011 edition marked by a high rate in new talent, the 2012 line-up is keeping the speed up with six new arrivals to compete against a plethora of great names in international cinema, in a broad mixture of genres.

With four previous Palme d’Or winners (Michael Haneke, Ken Loach , Cristian Mungiu, and Abbas Kiarostami) and six directors already awarded in Cannes (David Cronenberg, Jacques Audiard, Alain Resnais, Carlos Reygadas, Matteo Garrone, Thomas Vinterberg), the 2012 Cannes competition has a lot going for it. The surprise this year lies in the five American productions in the competiton, that Thierry Frémaux says "breach the gap between small-scale young independent films and big studio films not necessarily targeted at an adult audience of film enthusiasts”. With Jeff Nichols, Wes Anderson, Lee Daniels, and two films from the United States by Australian directors Andrew Dominik and John Hillcoat, the Cannes Film Festival is broadening its scope to new horizons. Add to them Canadian director David Cronenberg and Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas, and North America is Europe’s number one competitor in the race for the Palme d’Or.

The Old Continent’s filmmakers however still have most contenders in the competition with 10 films by three French directors (Audiard, Resnais, and Leos Carax), two Austrians (Haneke and Ulrich Seidl), one Italian (Garrone), one Englishman (Loach), one Romanian (Mungiu), one Dane (Vinterberg), and one Ukrainian (Sergei Loznitsa).

Asia has three contenders in the competition with two Korean directors (Im Sang-soo and Hong Sang-soo) and the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, while Latin America and Africa are in the race with Walter Salles and Yousry Nasrallah.

Out of competition, in special and midnight screenings, the line-up is looking especially good too with films by Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, Fatih Akin, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Takashi Miike, Raymond Depardon, and Philip Kaufman.

Opening film (in competition)
Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson

Closing film
Thérèse D [trailer] - Claude Miller

Competition

Vous n’avez encore rien vu [trailer] - Alain Resnais
Rust & Bone [trailer, film focus] - Jacques Audiard
Holy Motors - Leos Carax
Cosmopolis [trailer] -David Cronenberg
The Paperboy - Lee Daniels
Killing Them Softly - Andrew Dominik
Amour [trailer, film focus] - Michael Haneke
Reality [trailer, film focus] - Matteo Garrone
Lawless - John Hillcoat
In Another Country - Sangsoo Hong
Taste of Money - Im Sang-Soo
Angel's Share [trailer, film focus] - Ken Loach
Beyond the Hills [trailer, film focus] - Cristian Mungiu
After the Battle - Yousry Nasrallah
Mud - Jeff Nichols
Post Tenebras Lux - Carlos Reygadas
On the Road - Walter Salles
Paradis - Ulrich Seidl
The Hunt - Thomas Vinterberg
In the Fog - Sergei Loznitsa
Like Someone in Love - Abbas Kiarostami

Out of competition
Io e te [trailer] - Bernardo Bertollucci
Madagascar 3, Europe's Most Wanted - Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Hemingway & Gellhorn - Philip Kaufman

Special screenings

Trashed - Candida Brad
Polluting Paradise - Fatih Akin
The Central Park Fives - Ken Burns
Villegas - Gonzalo Tobal
Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir - Laurent Bouzerau
The Invisibles - Sébastien Lifshitz
A Música Segundo Tom Jobim - Nelson Pereira dos Santos
Journal de France - Claudine Nougaret, Raymond Depardon
Le Serment de Tobrouk - Bernard-Henri Levy

Midnight screenings
Dracula - Dario Argento
The Sapphires - Wayne Blair
Maniac - Franck Khalfoun
Ai To Makoto - Takashi Miike

65th Anniversary
Une journée particulière - Gilles Jacob, Samuel Faure

(Translated from French)