by Nathaniel R
Todd Haynes' first documentary is about the seminal band, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
We've already looked at the competition lineup so here are the other key sections. It's worth noting that though the press mostly focuses on the Competition films, sometimes the buzziest titles come from other sections. There are some juries that pull from multiple sections too like the Camera d'Or jury (which honors first films), as well as two unofficial but exciting competitions, the Queer Palm and the fan favourite the Palm Dog (which names the best dog in the festival... and it's often much more competitive than you'd think with some years offering multiple win-worthy candidates). Director's Fortnight and Critics Week lineups haven't been announced yet but here are the rest of them...
Un Certain Regard
Though this is kind of the "honorable mention" competition slate, that doesn't always mean secondary in quality. Sometimes its stronger than the main competition slate which is built around more famous auteurs. The winner of the Camera D'Or often comes from this section. If a film has an * it's eligible for that particular prize, being a first feature.
one of the sets in "After Yang"
AFTER YANG (Kogonada, USA)
Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith co-star in this sci-fi story about a malfunctioning AI. Kogonada's debut was the acclaimed indie Columbus (2017).
BLUE BAYOU (Justin Chon, USA)
Korean-American Chon is a quadruple-threat. He directors, writes, produces and acts in his movies. Here he is playing a man trying to build a life for his family in Louisiana. This is Chon's fourth feature. He's best known for directing and starring in Gook (2017) and for playing Eric in the Twilight films. Alicia Vikander co-stars as his wife in this new drama.
BONNE MÈRE / NORA (Hafsia Herzi, France)
A housekeeper tries to help her son who is awaiting trial for robbing a gas station. Herzi previously directed and starred in the queer drama Tu mérites un amour (2019) which played at Cannes but this time she's only directing.
LA CIVIL (Teodora Ana Mihai, Romania/Belgium) *
A Spanish language drama about a woman who seeks vengeance when her teenage daughter is kidnapped in Mexico. Mihai previously won acclaim with the documentary Waiting for August (2014).
COMMITMENT HASAN (Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu, Turkey)
Information is scarce thus far.
DELO (HOUSE ARREST) (Alexey German Jr, Russia)
A university professor criticizes the administration only to then be accused of embezzled. With the government against him, his court case draws closer.
a shot of the crew
FREDA (Gessica Généus, Haiti) *
Described by the director as "a portrait of a woman, of a family, in the context of the current sociopolitical crisis in Haiti."
GAEY WA'R (Na Jiazuo, China) *
The english language title might be "Remainder".
GREAT FREEDOM (Sebastian Meise, Austria)
Franz Rogowski (Undine, Transit) stars as a homosexual man who goes directly from concentration camps at the end of World War II to prison due to the enforcement of "Paragraph 175". Meise made one previous feature 10 years ago called Still Life.
THE INNOCENTS (Eskil Vogt, Norway)
Vogt has co-written all of Joachim Trier's movies but he made a pretty special directorial debut by himself on Blind (2014) several years ago now. He's finally made a second feature. Like his first which leaned toward the thriller drama, this one is a little spooky. It's a horror drama about children revealing mysterious powers when adults aren't looking.
LAMB (Valdimar Jóhansson, Iceland) *
Sweden's Noomi Rapace stars in this mystery about a childless couple and a newborn that shows up on their farm. (Rapace spent a few years of her childhood living in Iceland and actually made her film debut, uncredited, at just eight years old in the Icelandic classic In the Shadow of the Raven, though she doesn't usually make Icelandic films.)
LET THERE BE MORNING (Eran Kolirin, Israel)
"A bittersweet comedy". It's from the director of The Band's Visit and deals with identity and national belonging and a wall that's built around the village where the protagonist was born. Alex Bachri stars in his first film role (he was previously a documentary editor)
UN MONDE (Laura Wandel, Belgium) *
The title is super generic ("a world") which doesn't help but the story sounds very specific. It's about a young girl who sees her older brother being bullied but is told by their father to not talk about it.
MONEYBOYS (C.B. Yi, Austria) *
A Mandarin-language hustler drama about a young man whose family can't accept his way of life (though they'll accept his money). Kai Ko (who previously starred in the superhero film A Choo which is streaming on Netflix) is in the cast but not sure if he's the leading man.
ONADA - 10,000 NIGHTS IN THE JUNGLE (Arthur Harari, France/Japan)
Opening Night Film. It's the true story of a Japanese solder fighting in The Philippines who refused to believe that World War II had ended for years afterwards.
PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN (Tatiana Huezo, Mexico)
A war-time drama seen through the eyes of three young girls
REHANA MARYAM NOOR (Abdullah Mohamma Saad, Bangladesh)
This is the first Bangladeshi film accepted to Cannes! Saad previously directed Live from Dhaka (2016) and his new film is about an assistant professor at a medical college who witnesses an incident involving a student that spurs her to take political action. Azmeri Haque Badhon, usually a TV star, headlines.
UNCLENCHING THE FISTS (Kira Kovalenko, Russia)
A family drama set in a mining town about unhealed trauma, a strict father and the grown daughter he still treats like a child.
WOMEN DO CRY (Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, Bulgaria)
Mileva and Kazakova usually make politically charged documentaries but this time they're doing a narrative inspired by their country not ratifying measures meant to prevent violence against women. Just Oscar-nominated Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) is in the ensemble cast.
Out of Competition
ALINE, THE VOICE OF LOVE (Valérie LeMercier, France)
LeMercier co-wrote, directs, and stars in this music bio about a fictional Canadian singing sensation inspired by Céline Dion (but not actually Céline Dion)
BAC NORD (Cédric Jimenez, France)
A police thriller about a dangerous neighborhood. Gilles Lellouche, François Civil, Karim Lekloum, Kenza Dortas, and Adèle Exarhopoulous star.
DE SON VIVANT (IN HIS LIFETIME) (Emmanuelle Bercot, France)
Bercot won Best Actress at Cannes for My King (2015) and she's back as a director with a mother-son drama starring the legendary Catherine Deneuve as a dying woman and Benoît Magimel (The Piano Teacher) as her son.
EMERGENCY DECLARATION (Han Jae-Rim, Korea)
Cannes tends to focus on dramas but there's at least one more action-thriller leaning film in the mix. It's about terrorism on a passenger jet. The cast is totally all-star: Song Kang-Ho (Parasite), Lee Byung-hun (I Saw the Devil), Jeon Do-Yeon (The Housemaid), Park Hae-Joon (Believer), Kim Nam-gil (Nabbeun Namja) and more.
STILLWATER (Tom McCarthy, USA)
We previously discussed the trailer to this drama starring Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin from the director of Spotlight.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (Todd Haynes, USA)
Haynes makes his first documentary and second film with Velvet in title. Naturally it's about the influential rock band from the 1960s and 1970s
Midnight Screenings
BLOODY ORANGES (Jean-Christopher Meurisse, France)
A multi-character film which sounds like a comedy but we're not sure. The very busy actor Denis Podalydès is one of the stars. He has 7 films completed or filming or in post-production at the moment.
Cannes Premiere
This is a new section built (mostly) to honor filmmakers who've previously been in competition. IndieWire suggests its a way to address complaints that the same filmmakers appear in the Main Competition each year and not automatically include them in that coveted program and that sounds likely. But if they're not in competition for the Palme does that mean the selection committee thought less of these particular films? What will critics make of this section?
COW (Andrea Arnold, UK)
It's the first documentary feature from the director behind visceral fresh dramas like Fish Tank, Red Road, and American Honey. We have no idea what to expect.
DECEPTION (Arnaud Desplechin, France)
Desplechin hasn't had a success on the level of Kings and Queen and A Christmas Tale (both from the mid-Aughts) in quite a while but we're always hopeful. His latest is about a novelist (Denis Podalydès) and his relationship to his wife, mistress, and female characters in his work. Two great film French actresses Léa Seydoux and Emmanuelle Devos co-star.
EVOLUTION (Kornél Mundruczo, Hungary)
Mundruczo follows up Pieces of a Woman with an adaptation of a Philip Roth novel.
HOLD ME TIGHT (Mathieu Amalric, France)
Vicki Krieps and Arieh Worthalter, who was so good as the father in trans drama Girl, are the leads.
IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE (Hong Sang Soo, Korea)
Though we love Korean cinema we've never been able to understand what people see in hugely prolific Hong Sang Soo but festival programmers especially are absolutely besotted with his work.
JANE PAR CHARLOTTE (Charlotte Gainsbourg) *
A fine actress gets behind the camera for a change to make a film about her famous mother Jane Birkin.
JFK REVISITED: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (Oliver Stone, USA)
Stone goes back to the Kennedy assassination to look at declassified files.
LOVE SONGS FOR TOUGH GUYS (Samuel Benchetrit, France)
Vanessa Paradis, Valerie Bruni Tedeschi, JoeyStarr and more star in this multi-character drama
MOTHERING SUNDAY (Eva Husson, France)
Set in England following the World War I the drama is about a maid (Odessa Young) and the man she loves (Josh O'Connor) who is engaged to someone else. Olivia Colman and Colin Firth co-star, presumably as either her employers or his parents? Husson previously directed the undervalued and very French Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story and the much buzzier Kurdish female battalion drama Girls of the Sun.
VAL (Ting Poo and Leo Scott, USA)
A24 will be distributing this buzzy documentary about the actor Val Kilmer which is based on decades of personal footage the actor recorded of his life.
Special Screenings
BABI YAR, CONTEXT (Sergei Loznista, Ukraine)
Loznita came to international fame with potent films like My Joy, Donbass, and A Gentle Creature but he's always churned out documentaries inbetween the narrative features. His latest doc is about a Nazi massacre of 30,000 Jews over a three day period in 1941.
BLACK NOTEBOOKS (Shlomi Elkabetz, Israel)
This is Elkabetz first feature after losing his co-director/co-writer/ movie star sister Ronit Elkabetz (they made the hit Gett together in 2014)
H6 (Yé Yé, France) *
MARINER OF THE MOUNTAINS (Karim Aïnouz, Brazil)
Ainouz, who we are quite fond of after Invisible Life and Futuro Beach, returns with a personal essay film about his family's Algerian roots.
THE YEAR OF THE EVERLASTING STORM (multiple directors)
Jafar Panahi, Anthony Chen, Malik Kitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul contribute short films made during COVID-19.
Which movies are you most excited about?