Drive My Cannes: The New Competition Lineup!
Thursday, April 14, 2022 at 11:32AM
Arnaud Trouvé in Armageddon Time, Cannes, Dardenne Brothers, Decision To Leave, France, Francophile, Frère & Soeur, James Gray, Lee Jung Jae, Stars at Noon, Triangle of Sadness, film festivals

Direct from France, please welcome longtime reader / first time contributor Arnaud Trouvé to talk about the Cannes festival and share the new lineup... uPDATE 04/23: new additions indicated below under red headlines

Ruben Östlund's "Triangle of Sadness" © SF Studios

by Arnaud Trouvé

My first encounter with the Cannes Film Festival was in 1998, when Roberto Benigni kissed Martin Scorsese’s feet after winning the Grand Prix for Life is Beautiful (which he mistakenly took for the Palme d’Or). Cannes ceremonies are always broadcast live on French TV and my interest grew rapidly over the years. Flash-forward to 2009: the Paris visual effects company I’m working for had to deliver over a hundred shots for an upcoming production destined for the Croisette. "It has to be ready for Cannes," was the motto as we worked on a very tight schedule. This production happened to be Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void and we managed to screen it in Competition at the last minute, with no opening or closing credits!

A decade later, the announcement of the Cannes lineup is still an annual event for cinephiles around the world. And after a bonkers ceremony in the summer of 2021 that saw the victory of Titane, the festival is ready to get back to its usual May slot. Let’s have a look at its anticipated official selection unveiled today by artistic director Thierry Frémaux...

"Les Amandiers" (The Almond Tree)

Competition

 

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Even with Venice scooping some of our recent Best Film César winners (Custody, Lost Illusions), Cannes remains the primary spotlight for French productions. This year is no exception as the Competition welcomes Valeria Bruni Tedeschi with an hommage to director Patrice Chéreau, and Arnaud Desplechin who directed Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud as the titular siblings in Frère & soeur. With Frère & soeur, Marion Cotillard has now opened a film at the Festival in 10 of the last 12 years. Just a few months after her Best Director win in Berlin (for Both Sides of the Blade starring Juliette Binoche & Vincent Lindon), Claire Denis is back with an English-language film Stars at Noon starring Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn.

Films by the Dardenne brothers have won almost every Cannes award possible. This time, the duo of directors is back with Tori and Lokita while fellow Belgian director Lukas Dhont (who debuted with Girl a few years back) is also in Competition with his new fillm Close. Congrats to him on making this prestigious jump at only 31 years old. Panos Koutras and Sergei Lonitzsa are two of the most exciting European directors right now and I’m glad the festival is welcoming them again in parallel sections, especially Loznitsa whose native Ukraine is under unbelievable turmoil. 

"Decision To Leave" © CJ Entertainment

Korean director Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, his follow up his international succcess with The Handmaiden (2016) is one to watch in Competition. After having won Jury Prize (Thirst) and Grand Prix (Old Boy), maybe third’s time the charm and the Palme for Park? And Cannes would not be complete without a bunch of previous Palme winners so we have new films from returning champs like Japan's Kore-Eda Hirokazu (Shoplifters), Romania's Cristian Mungiu (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days) and Sweden's Ruben Östlund (The Square). Östlund's new film Triangle of Sadness is in English and stars Woody Harrelson and Harris Dickinson.

David Cronenberg’s much anticipated Crimes of the Future will happily open in cinemas here in France on the day of its screening in Competition and then in the US in June as Nathaniel just reported when sharing its teaser.

"Armageddon Time" © Focus Features

Following the double Palme d'Or punch of Elephant & Fahrenheit 9/11 (2003 & 2004), US productions have tended to be less present on the Croisette. Despite one additional Palme for Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), the Netflix dominance seems to have taken its toll and re-oriented Baumbach, Cuarón, Campion… directly to Venice where Netflix films are welcome. Nevertheless, James Gray who amazingly has never won a single award in Cannes despite numerous appearances, will be there as planned with Armageddon Time starring Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins. And Kelly Reichardt (who was on the jury for Parasite's win) is also in competition with Showing Up which stars Michelle Williams.

Despite the ongoing war with Venice, Cannes still managed to provide the premiere of the very first non-English-speaking Best Picture Oscar (Parasite) although Venice came tantalizingly close the year before with Roma. It was the very first Palme for South Korea, and I hope many new countries will also get their dues, in the vein of Romania (4 months… , 2007) and Thailand (Uncle Boonmee..., 2010). Always keep an eye on the top prize, the Palme d'Or. Though Cannes and mainstream awards bodies have much different tastes, you have to go back to Dheepan (2015) to find a Palme winner that didn’t land a single Oscar or BAFTA nomination. 

 

OTHER FILMS AT THE FESTIVAL

SPECIAL SCREENINGS 

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CANNES PREMIERES 

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OUT OF COMPETITION

"Elvis" © Warner Bros 

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MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

The stars of "Hunt" 

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UN CERTAIN REGARD

"Domingo and the Mist" © Doha Film Institute"Sick of Myself" © Oslo Pictures, Garagefilm International, Film i Väst

 

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Ethan Coen (sans Joel) will screen out of competition Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind while Top Gun – Maverick will take the blockbuster slot and welcome Tom Cruise for only its second appearance ever at the festival (30 years after Far and Away). Notable omissions for big Out of Competition premieres here include Pixar’s Lightyear and the much rumored Wisteria by David Lynch; the director himself denied the rumours on his YouTube Weather report.

As usual, the most out-there flicks, are outside the main lineup, too, like the latest by ubiquitous Quentin Dupieux (Fumer fait tousser) and "Z," the new Michel Hazanivicius film which is a remake of the excellent Japanese zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead. Novembre, an investigation on the November-13th Paris attacks starring Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin, Lyna Khoudri and Sami Outalbali (from Sex Education), directed by Cédric Jimenez (Bac Nord) could be interesting. Personally I’m very excited to see George Miller’s Three Thousand years of Longing which stars Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. The Competition lineup does not feature any directorial debut this year, so you'll find the behind-the-camera debut of actor Lee Jong-Jae (Squid Game) in Midnight Screenings. His film is called Hunt. 

Finally, though Cannes would be nothing without its glamour and celebrities, I hope Frémaux will soon announce a slightly more varied jury than usual. Why always pick inside the director/actor box ? Aside from a handful of critics, producers, and singers, composer Gabriel Yared and designer Jean-Paul Gaultier are the only outside the box jurors from the last decade.

Cannes 2017

Our latest Lead Acting Oscar winners (Will Smith & Jessica Chastain) both served on the jury in 2017, under the presidency of Pedro Almodóvar. Eventually, will this game-changing victory year of female directors continue? Consider the past 12 months: Chloe Zhao won the Oscar in April 2021, followed by Julia Ducournau at Cannes that summer, and Audrey Diwan in Venice that fall, as 2022 began Carla Simón won Berlin and then Jane Campion took the Oscar in March. Incredible.

 

The 75th Cannes Film Festival will take place May 17-28th, 2022. Elisa Giudici (who you heard from at Venice, Locarno, and Cannes last year) will be covering the festival again for TFE.

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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