Yesterday Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux announced the line up for this years festival and a pretty fantastic line up it seems to be too. New films from Almodóvar, Michael Haneke and Tarantino, for starters.
Variety describe the Competition line up as “Cannes’ biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown in recent years” and judging by the list of names their probably not far off the mark. Screen responsed to the announcement in much the same way “heavyweight Cannes line-up”
Over in Un Certain Regard this year is Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Day, with his new film Tales From The Golden Age. Originally the name of a set of scripts set in the Ceausescu era, of which 4 Months was supposedly one. It now seems to be the title of a single film described as “a collection of Romanian urban legends from the communist era“. Why has it been relegated to Un Certain Regard after a Palme d’Or win for 4 months is not yet clear, will have to wait and see.
Haven’t had time yet to go over all the competition and sidebar titles properly yet. Michael Haneke new film The White Ribbon looks interesting and almost certainly slightly harrowing. The press notes describes it as follows “Some inexplicable events disturb the quiet life of a German village, just before World War I. A cable has been put up to trip the doctor riding his horse, a barn is set on fire, two children are abducted and tortured…” in other word classic Haneke material. Will Tarantino be back on form? Judging by the trailer it seems unlikely, but on the off chance he is it’s too good to pass over, so it’s firmly on my Cannes ‘to see’ list.
According to Screen, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro will now open Directors’ Fortnight despite him previously turning down an out of competition slot. After Youth Without Youth you have to wonder if Tetro is yet another dud and has been given the opening slot for Directors’ Fortnight simply because it’s Coppola.
Anyway, my accreditation has been confirmed so will have to wait to May to see which ones turn out to be worthy of the hype and which previously unheard of gem will set the Croisette buzzing this year.
