17/02/2011

While the Berlinale is drawing to a close, professional attention is now focusing on the 64th Cannes Film Festival (May 11-22, 2011), which looks set to be a glittering event.

Among the European titles tipped for a screening on the Croisette are The Skin That I Inhabit by Spain’s Pedro Almodovar (see news); Melancholia by Denmark’s Lars von Trier (see news); This Must Be The Place by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino, starring Sean Penn (see news); We Have a Pope by fellow Italian director Nanni Moretti (see news); The Kid With a Bike by Belgium’s Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (see news); Le Havre by Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki (see news); Wuthering Heights by Brit director Andrea Arnold (see news); and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia by Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Elena by Russia’s Andrei Zvyagintsev and Faust by fellow Russian director Alexander Sokurov are also in with a chance of selection, as are Brit helmer Steve McQueen’s Shame (see news) and Paradise by Austria’s Ulrich Seidl.

The Cannes Festival will end the long suspense by unveiling US director Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life. The line-up is also expected to include Canadian director David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (starring Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud); Gus van Sant’s Restless; and Brazilian helmer Walter Salles’s On the Road (if it is finished on time); with an unlikely wild card being Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt Now and Sunrise.

Rumour has it that Wong Kar-waï’s The Grandmasters will not be ready on time, but the director is no stranger to last-minute entries at Cannes. The timing might also be (too) tight for Brillante Mendoza’s Captured, Hou Hsiao hsien’s Assassin and Wang Xiaoshuai’s Eleven Flowers.

Meanwhile, definite entries include Lou Ye’s Love and Bruises (starring Tahar Rahim – see news), I Wish by Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda and Life Without Principle by Johnnie To.

Likely French contenders include Bruno Dumont’s L’Empire (see news); Philippe Garrel’s That Summer (see news); Christophe Honoré’s musical comedy The Beloved (see news); and Chicken With Plums by directorial duo Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi (see news and news). Dominik Moll’s The Monk and Mathieu Kassovitz’s Rebellion will, according to latest reports, not be ready until the summer and the end of the year, respectively.

Among the outside favourites are Mia Hansen Love’s Goodbye First Love (see news); Ismaël Ferroukhi’s Free Men (see news); Pierre Schoeller’s The Exercise of State; and animated films The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar and the Prodigies by Antoine Charreyron (see news).

Although the only certainties for the moment are that Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris [+see also:
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film profile] will open the festival (see news) and Robert De Niro will head the jury, Cannes 2011 has great potential and promises to give selector Thierry Frémaux magnificent revenge over the few critics who turned their noses up at the previous edition.

(Translated from French)