A few notes on the Cannes "lineup" that won't make it to Cannes
Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 10:53PM by Nathaniel R
Steve McQueen would have had TWO films at Cannes this yearCannes won’t be held this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic but the powers that be at Cannes have announced that 56 films that would have filled out various programs will bear the Cannes label as in "we selected them!". i.e. they would have played there. This will give the films a leg up moving forward should any of the fall festivals actually take place. This does not however tell us anything about what would have “competed” this year at Cannes since they generally only have 20 or so films in the main competition. Spike Lee was meant to preside over the competition jury this year but instead he'll do the honors next summer instead.
It will forever be lost to an alternate history what might have been this year and what film might have held the difficult task of following in Parasite’s footsteps to the Palme d’Or...
But let's list the 56 films anyway along with a few notes here and there.
We don’t know whether they would have played out of competition, in competition, in the Un Certain Regard program or what not but we do know which would have competed for the Camera D’Or since that’s for the debut films (no matter which section they’re in). We’ve highlighted those in red so you can see which they are...
LISTED IN ORDER OF RUNNING TIME JUST FOR FUN
LOVERS ROCK was conceived as part of a streaming anthology series
Under 90 minutes. So concise and kind of them!
LOVERS ROCK by Steve McQueen (England) – 1h08
16 SPRING by Suzanne Lindon (France) – 1h13
IBRAHIM by Samir Guesmi (France) – 1h20
JOSEP [Animated Film] by Aurel (France) – 1h20 – 1st film
AYA TO MAJO (EARWIG AND THE WITCH) [Animated Film] by Gorô Miyazaki (Japan) – 1h22
THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS [Documentary] by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (USA) – 1h24
ROUGE (Red Soil) by Farid Bentoumi (France) – 1h26
MEMORY HOUSE was the only Latin American film selected
CASA DE ANTIGUIDADES (Memory House) by Joao Paulo Miranda Maria (Brazil) – 1h27
THE SPEECH by Laurent Tirard (France) – 1h27
TEDDY by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma (France) – 1h28
FLEE is a gay animated feature (!) from Denmark
In the sweet spot -- the perfect length for movies
LES DEUX ALFRED by Bruno Podalydès (France) – 1h30
BROKEN KEYS (False note) by Jimmy Keyrouz (Lebanon) – 1h30
DNA (DNA) by Maïwenn (Algeria / France) – 1h30
SOUAD by Ayten Amin (Egypt) 1h30
FLEE [Animated Film] by Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Denmark) – 1h30
SOUL [Animated Film] by Pete Docter (USA) – 1h30
9 DAYS AT RAQQA [A Documentary] by Xavier de Lauzanne (France) – 1h30
THE BILLION ROAD [A Documentary] by Dieudo Hamadi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) – 1h30
PASSION SIMPLE is from a Lebanese French filmmaker
SLALOM by Charlène Favier (France) – 1h32
HERE WE ARE by Nir Bergman (Israel) – 1h34
GAGARINE by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (France) – 1h35
VAURIEN by Peter Dourountzis (France) – 1h35
ANTOINETTE IN THE CÉVÈNNES by Caroline Vignal (France) – 1h35
PASSION SIMPLE by Danielle Arbid – (Lebanon) – 1h36
JOHN AND THE HOLE by Pascual Sisto (USA) – 1h38
Prolific François Ozon is back with SUMMER 85. We love Ozon
exactly 100 minutes
DES HOMMES (Home Front) by Lucas Belvaux (Belgium) – 1h40
SUMMER 85 by François Ozon (France) – 1h40
SWEAT by Magnus Von Horn (Sweden) – 1h40
HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS by Im Sang-Soo (Korea) – 1h40
A NIGHT DOCTOR by Elie Wajeman (France) – 1h40
SI LE VENT TOMBE ( Should the Wind Fall ) by Nora Martirosyan (Armenia) – 1h40
UN TRIOMPHE (The Big Hit) by Emmanuel Courcol (France) – 1h40
FRENCH DISPATCH is eagerly awaited
PLEASURE which played as a short in Cannes 2013 is now a feature film
nearing two hours
THE FRENCH DISPATCH by Wes Anderson (USA) – 1h43
PLEASURE by Ninja Thyberg (Sweden) – 1h45
NADIA, BUTTERFLY by Pascal Plante (Canada) – 1h46
A GOOD MAN by Marie Castille Mention-Schaar (France) – 1h47
GARÇON CHIFFON by Nicolas Maury (France) – 1h48
FALLING by Viggo Mortensen (USA) – 1h52
LIMBO by Ben Sharrock (England) – 1h53
SEPTET: THE STORY OF HONG KONG by Ann Hui, Johnnie TO, Tsui Hark, Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo-Ping and Patrick Tam (Hong Kong) – 1h53
PENINSULA by Yeon Sang-Ho (Korea) – 1h54
DRUK (Another Round) by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark) – 1h55
Early buzz is really good on AMMONITE starring Kate Winslet & Saoirse Ronan Yay!
exactly two hours
THE THINGS YOU SAY, THE THINGS YOU DO by Emmanuel Mouret (France) – 2h
AMMONITE by Francis Lee (England) – 2h
IN THE DUSK is about Lithuanians resisting Russian occupation
over two hours
MANGROVE by Steve McQueen (England) – 2h04
FEBRUARY (February) by Kamen Kalev (Bulgaria) – 2h05
LAST WORDS by Jonathan Nossiter (USA) – 2h06
IN THE DUSK (At dusk) by Sharunas Bartas (Lithuania) – 2h06
ENFANT TERRIBLE is a Rainer Werner Fassbinder biopic. YES!
For those who like long movies
BEGINNING (In the beginning) by Déa Kulumbegashvili (Georgia) – 2h10
ENFANT TERRIBLE by Oskar Roehler (Germany) – 2h14
EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS (Forgotten we’ll be) by Fernando Trueba (Spain) – 2h16
ASA GA KURU (True Mothers) by Naomi Kawase (Japan) – 2h20
For those who actually wish all movies were television series
THE REAL THING by Kôji Fukada (Japan) – 3h48
unknown length
INTO THE WIND (Running with the Wind) by Shujun WEI (China)
THE DEATH OF CINEMA AND MY FATHER TOO by Dani Rosenberg (Israel)
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD by Laurent Lafitte ( France)
SOME ADDITIONAL NOTES
16 of the 56 films are by female filmmakers which is a record number for Cannes (curiously though there were fewer female filmmakers actually submitted for consideration this year).
Only 3 films of those 56 films are from black filmmakers with Steve McQueen as 66% of that number.
Asia, Europe, the US, and the Middle East continue to be well represented but Latin-America continues not to be. Only one of the films is from Latin America (Brazil's Memory House)
Cannes is not done with announcements yet. They have yet to announce the short films that would have competed.
We don't know how many films would have competed for the unofficial side prizes like the Palme Dog, or the Queer Palm but we do know regarding the latter that there are at least four LGBTQ films (the animated film Flee, the romantic drama Ammonite, the Fassbinder Biopic Enfant Terrible, and François Ozon's Summer 85)
Reader Comments (11)
Is Kate in The French Dispatch? she was listed on imdb at one time, then not. then i heard she was still in it, and then no. any info?
Also - Love Ozon - especially when Jeremie Renier is also involved:) however 8 Women is an absolute masterpiece!!
This makes me so so sad.
They can’t send screeners out to the juries and have them convene / vote together over video? Seems like a waste.
I'm sad that I don't feel sad at this. My emotional capacity has been maxed out by all the other things happening and the never ending back catalogue of television and film is more than satisfactory enough for me for at least a year or so. At least until an uptick in these normal (or as close to normal as they return) release, festivals and even the trivial awards. I'm very jealous of you in this case Peggy Sue.
UGH this could’ve been Kate’s Cannes win. I’m so sad.
What's interesting to me here is that, with the exception of a few names, not as many "usual suspects" auteurs this time around?
Dividing movies by runtime is so arbitrary. There's no such thing as a "perfect runtime." LAWRENCE OF ARABIA at 90 minutes would absolutely suck. FRANCES HA at 120 would be bad, too. It's completely relative.
Jonathan: Basically agreed. However, if I were to identify a perfect range of runtime? 100-130 minutes.
Jonathan -- it is arbitrary yes but like it says up top "for fun". Alphabetical is boring and also inaccurate when it comes to foreign titles.
Joseph- This article I read earlier today echoes your sentiments about the lack of big-name auteurs this time around, and then proceeds to analyse our fixation with them.
https://www.filmcompanion.in/film-festivals/the-cannes-2020-lineup-is-here-and-wes-anderson-is-the-sole-star-director-baradwaj-rangan/amp/
Joseph -- I don't quite agree with that. 2018, in comparison, felt like a selection much more concerned with spotlighting new voices and directors not usually seen at big festivals.
Anderson, Bartas, Hui, Kawase, Maïwenn, McQueen, Ozon, Im Sang-Soo, To, and Vinterberg (etc.) are all usual suspects when it comes to Cannes. As for others like Nir Bergman, Francis Lee, or Viggo Mortensen, they may not be world-famous directors (though Viggo is obviously famous as an actor), but they are habitual faces of the European festival circuit.
Once again, there's a dearth of films by women, as well as Latin American and African selections. More than anything, that makes this list feel like more of the same for the festival.