The lineup for the 63rd Cannes Film Festival is evidently still a work-in-progress, with an additional three or four titles to be added to the Competition; but here's what was announced in Paris today.
The festival will open with Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring, of course, former Gladiator Russell Crowe. "Scott has told Empire magazine that history is at the heart of his thinking," writes Stephen Moss, who's gone off in search of the "real" Robin Hood for the Guardian. "'It's always stronger if you do that... I always like to know where they're coming from.' Scott's Robin has been fighting alongside King Richard (the Lionheart) in the Crusades — but the entire Crusades backstory that now dominates treatments of Robin was, in fact, established in the public imagination by Ridley's namesake, Sir Walter Scott, in his novel Ivanhoe (1820). It has given an essentially local tale — Robin's banditry somewhere in northern England — a context never intended in the 15th-century ballads on which the Robin Hood mythos is based." At any rate, here's Cannes' page for the film — which is not competing.
Tim Burton presides over this year's Jury which also includes Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Alberto Barbera, Kate Beckinsale, Emmanuel Carrère, Benicio Del Toro, Victor Erice and Shekhar Kapur.
COMPETITION
Mathieu Amalric's Tourneé (On Tour). From Le Pacte: "Joachim, a veteran impresario, has been around the block a few times and his face tells a thousand stories. Traveling with a gaggle of beautiful American strippers, he attempts to make his comeback touring a fun and colorful new Burlesque variety show round the highways and byways of France. But as the tour rolls on, Joachim has to keep all his wits about him if he wants to be paid in full, keep his estranged wife and kids happy and keep a handle on the increasingly uncontrollable girls..."
Xavier Beauvois's Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men). "A drama about Cistercian monks who stand up for their beliefs when confronted by fundamentalists," reads the IMDb synopsis.
Rachid Bouchareb's Hors la loi. "The director has reunited with four of the five stars of Days of Glory: Djamel Debbouze, Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem and Bernard Blancan," reported Fabien Lemercier for Cineuropa back in July. "Co-written by Bouchareb and his usual collaborator Olivier Lorelle, Outside the Law is set between 1945 and 1962 and traces the life of three brothers whose family has been driven off its land [in Algeria] and survived the Sétif massacres. They end up in France, where two of the brothers campaign for Algerian independence, while the third looks on, uncomprehending. The Battle of Paris, which brings the FLN (National Liberation Front) into conflict with the French police, crushes and divides them."
Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful, with Javier Bardem, Blanca Portillo and Rubén Ochandiano. This is the director's first feature "entirely in Spanish since his breakout Amores Perros," noted Nigel Smith back in March at indieWIRE. "Not much is known about the plot, apart from Bardem playing a man embroiled in shady dealings who is confronted by a childhood friend, who now happens to be a policeman. The film, shot mainly in Barcelona, is listed as in post-production stages, and is already being touted as an Oscar contender, despite its foreign pedigree."
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man). "Written by the director, the film (whose title is a quotation from Martinique poet Aimé Césaire's Notebook of a Return To My Native Land) will be set in Chad, a country in the grip of civil war with armed rebels threatening to seize power." Cineuropa's Fabien Lemercier: "In response, the government appeals to the population for a "war effort", demanding money or a child of fighting age. Adam ([Youssouf] Djaoro) is thus harassed by his local chief to make his contribution. But he has no money, he only has his son ([Diouc] Koma)."
Im Sang-soo's Housemaid. A remake of Kim Ki-young's 1960 classic The Housemaid with Jeon Do-yeon, best known for her performance in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine. There was evidently a screening just this Tuesday in Seoul and HanCinema was there to record the Q's and the A's with the cast.
Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, with Cannes poster model Juliette Binoche. A synopsis from ioncinema: "Based on an original script by Kiarostami, this tells the story of an English author (William Shimell) finds himself in Italy to promote his latest book and give a lecture on the subject of the relationship between originals and copies in the world of art. At the lecture he meets a French gallery owner (Binoche) and they decide to waste a couple of hours in the alleyways of a village in the southern parts of Tuscany. On a whim, the woman jokingly makes him out to be her all too often absent husband and the author plays along. As they enter into the game, they both find it increasingly difficult to draw a line between make believe and reality."
Takeshi Kitano's Outrage "tells the story of a conflict between two rival yakuza gangs, the Sannokai and the Ikemoto-gumi," reports Chris MaGee at Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow. "Otomo (Takeshi Kitano), the boss of a small crew, is put in the middle of this battle in hopes that all out war can be prevented. From the looks of the trailer [see below] it really does look like Kitano is going back to his roots. He's dropped the platinum hair he's sported off and on since his 2003 reworking of Zatoichi as well as his colourful painting that made a reappearance in [Achilles and the Tortoise]. Instead Outrage seems to have the overall feel and patented blue/grey color-palate of such very early Kitano films as Violent Cop and Boiling Point."
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry (pictured above; see the trailer below). The official synopsis: "A profound story of an elderly woman in search of the fundamental poetry from her life. Aside from being sentenced with an Alzheimer’s disease, she faces another dilemma when her teen-aged grandson who is under her care is found to be one of the assaulters of a girl from his junior-high school who had committed suicide."
Mike Leigh's Another Year."The ensemble comedy drama, starring Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Imelda Staunton, is the sole British film in competition at this year's festival," reports the UKPA. "The film tells the story of a happily married middle aged couple who endure other people's problems. Mike [sic], 67, known for his use of improvisation, previously won the Palme d'Or in 1996 for Secrets and Lies and was last nominated in 2002 for All or Nothing."
Doug Limon's Fair Game. You'll remember this little episode: "Valerie Plame is revealed to be a CIA agent by White House officials allegedly out to discredit her husband after he wrote a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece saying that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq." That's the plot description from Wikipedia. Naomi Watts plays Plame; Sean Penn, her husband, Joseph Wilson. Update, 4/28: Movieline's ST VanAirsdale got a few words with Limon the other night. Not only is Limon the only American director, this is his first film in competition: "At any festival. Ever. In my life." Update, 4/30: The film's "been acquired by Summit Entertainment," according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Sergei Loznitsa's You. My Joy. SOTA Cinema's description: "The story about a few days in the life of truck driver Georgi seems to be a never-ending nightmare, a spiral of violence and abuses of power. A man goes to work and on his way he is sucked into the everyday madness of his country, losing his health and memory in the process and ends up as a murderer, who calmly lies down to sleep after committing the crime. A dark parable about the situation in deep Russia today."
Daniele Luchetti's La nostra vita. According to this story in Corriere della Serra, Elio Germano, who also appeared in Luchetti's My Brother is an Only Child, plays a working class Roman taking a "shortcut between the honest and the dishonest." Update, 4/17: At Cineuropa, Camillo de Marco has a few of Luchetti's recent remarks on the film: "'I worked less on lightening up the tone this time, in order to let the truth emerge.' He added that he had 'a great desire look to at my country through a character that was not sweetened down; an ambitious working-class man who is full of life and dishonest.'"
Nikita Mikhalkov's Utomlyonnye solntsem 2. Translation: "Sequel to Burnt by the Sun." Mikhalkov reprises his role as Col. Sergei Petrovich Kotov and Nadezhda Mikhalkova once again plays Nadya. Update, 4/16: Mikhalkov "is that increasingly rarest of creatures, a genuine nationalist filmmaker whose loyalties are so old-school and patriarchal it can be difficult to like him," writes Vadim Rizov at Indie Eye, where he points to parodies of the poster for this new film. "Mikhalkov is upset and contemplating a lawsuit — which seems like an overreaction to a bunch of folks with above-average Photoshop skills and no real power, but what do I know." Update, 4/27: "It is Russia's most expensive film — including graphic tank battles, murderous Germans and a forgettable cameo by a pasty-looking Stalin," reports Luke Harding for the Guardian. "But the Kremlin's favourite actor and director, Nikita Mikhalkov, was tonight facing embarrassment after his long-awaited film about the second world war — Burnt by the Sun 2 — turned out a box office turkey."
Update, 4/23: Kornél Mundruczó's Tender Son - The Frankenstein Project. Originally an installation play presented last year at the Wiener Festwochen, "an intoxicating mix of splatter comedy, casting show and unsentimental social drama, focussing on those in the gutter of modern Hungary." Inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel.
Bertrand Tavernier's La Princesse de Montpensier. "Based on a short story by Madame de La Fayette (published in 1662), co-scripted by Tavernier and Jean Cosmos, La Princesse de Montpensier is a tale of the passions and tragic fate of a princess, a rich heiress of a French kingdom under threat in the wars of religion of 1562," writes ioncinema's Eric Lavallee. "The focal point of La Fayette's work is the love Mlle de Mézières feels for the duke de Guise and how she feels forced to marry the prince of Montpensier despite still being in love with the duke." With Mélanie Thierry and Gaspard Ulliel. Snapshots from the set.
Xiaoshuai Wang's Rizhao Ghongquing (Chongqing Blues). The "story of a father's search for his lost son," according to Chen Nan in China Daily. "'There is uncertainty, confusion and love in this story, which is common to every family,' Wang says. Starring Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing, the movie will hit the screens in June." Update, 4/23: Moved from Un Certain Regard to the Competition.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Loong Boonmee Raleuk Chaat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives). In January, we hosted the online premiere of A Letter to Uncle Boomee. Update, 4/17: Cargo's Ekkehard Knörer has noted that stills have been posted at Animate Projects. Update, 4/23: In Thailand's Nation, Apichatpong Weerasethakul tells Wise Kwai: "I think Boonmee will be the last film I can do like this. I think it's good because it really summarises everything. The memories of the old movies... it's time to move on to the other movies."
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine. With Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. See yesterday's roundup.
Manoel de Oliveira's O Estranho Caso de Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica). This is evidently the film, or could be the film, finally realized, Victor Erice describes in Rouge: "At the beginning of the 50s, in the last century, Manoel de Oliveira had only directed a few documentaries and one fiction feature, Aniki-Bobó, filmed in 1942. Cut off from the film industry, he dedicated himself entirely to agriculture. However, in 1952, he imagined a film, Angélica, based on an experience he lived due to the death of a young woman, his wife's cousin. Before the burial, the family asked Oliveira to take a photograph of the deceased. As he recounts it..." Click on to read more.
Xavier Dolan's Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats). "The delicious irony here?" snickers Brendan Kelly in Canada's Gazette. "The mean-spirited folks at the Genie Awards snubbed Dolan earlier this week by giving not even a nomination to J'ai tue ma mere [I Killed My Mother] and just days later we learn that young M. Dolan [how young? all of 21] is the only Canadian with a feature in the official selection at the world's most prestigious film festival." In February, Dolan told Norman Wilner of NOW Magazine that this new one is "a story about two friends who become infatuated with the same guy, and their friendship deteriorates as they try to conquer the object of their desire." Update, 4/17: AlloCiné interviews Dolan just hours after it was announced Les amours imaginaires would screen in Cannes. Just over three minutes; in French; no subtitles. Update, 4/22: Ioncinema's got three posters to look at. Update, 5/1:
Iván Fund and Santiago Loza's Los Labios. A "near-perfect, honest, true to life, fictional account of what it’s really like in the hamlet of San Cristóbal, Santa Fe, and in the paradores and puestos in rural areas," writes Julio Nakamurakare in a report for the Buenos Aires Herald from the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Films. "San Cristóbal, the birthplace of Fund, stands for all of God-forsaken, barren territories, and for the daily toils of people stuck in places and situations that seldom benefit from social programmes or charity."
Fabrice Gobert's Simon Werner a disparu... Update, 4/19: The Playlist reports that Sonic Youth have scored the film, and they've got a synopsis, too: "March 1992, in a small town in the suburbs of Paris. During an alcohol fuelled party, teenagers discover a body hidden in the bushes of a forest. A body that seems lifeless..." There's more.
Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme. Daniel Kasman has posted trailers. From the synopsis: "A symphony in three movements. Things such as: The Mediterranean, a cruise ship. Numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday… An old man, a war criminal (German, French, American we don't know) accompanied by his granddaughter. A famous French philosopher (Alain Badiou). A representative of the Moscow police, detective branch. An American singer (Patti Smith). An old French policeman. A fired female United Nations officer. A former double agent. A Palestinian ambassador..." Update, 4/30: Craig Keller notes that the film will be streaming on demand via Wild Bunch's VOD outlet, Filmo TV, on May 18, the day of the premiere at Cannes.
Christoph Hochhäusler's Unter dir die Stadt (The City Below). With Nicolette Krebitz. And here are all of the director's related posts at his blog, Parallel Film. Story: Roland, a bank manager, falls in love with Svenja, the wife of one of his employees. As their secret affair grows more intense, Roland begins pulling strings to ensure that the husband stays out of the picture. Svenja finds out and ends the affair. Roland begins to rethink things...
Update, 4/23: Jia Zhangke's I Wish I Knew. A documentary also known as Shanghai Legend in which interviewees share their memories of the city. See Emily Parker's profile in the Wall Street Journal and watch clips of Kevin B Lee's discussion with Jia in March.
Lodge Kerrigan's Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs). A "'secretly' filmed a story on Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick," reports ioncinema's Eric Lavallee. It's Kerrigan's first film since the anxiety-filled 2004 film Keane, which starred bite-sized Abigail Breslin and Damian Lewis in his best work to date. Currently on Wild Bunch's film slate, Kerrigan's Rebecca H. was funded with French coin and the film stars Géraldine Pailhas (Ozon's 5X2) as Slick."
Ágnes Kocsis's Pál Adrienn (Adrienn Pál). A "rather stout nurse becomes more and more insensitive to the illnesses and death around her," reads a Hungarian Film Week report from January 2009. "She goes on a journey to find her childhood friend. During the journey she tries to collect her memories, and she also goes on a journey in the memories of all those people with whom she meets." Update, 4/24: Ioncinema has images.
Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan. A debut feature from Anurag Kashyap's newly established production company featuring Ronit Roy, Ram Kapoor, Rajat Barmecha and Ayan Boradia. From film club: "Its a coming of age story revolving around father-son relationship." Update, 4/18: Bikas Mishra asks Motwana about the film for Dear Cinema.
Radu Muntean's Marti, Dupa Craciun (Tuesday, After Christmas). The IMDb synopsis for this Romanian feature: "Paul Hanganu loves two women. Adriana his wife and the mother of their daughter, the woman with whom he's shared the thrills of the past ten years, and Raluca the woman who has made him redefine himself. He has to leave one of them before Christmas."
Hideo Nakata's Chatroom. FEARnet's spoken with Aaron Johnson about this one: "It's kind of a really different, interesting piece. Enda Walsh wrote it. He did Hunger, if anyone's see that. And it's a Japanese director — Hideo Nakata, who did The Ring. It's kind of bizarre really. It's this sort of small piece that we all worked on for nothing. [Laughs.]... It's kind of a thriller. It's teenagers online — there's an online world and an offline world that parallel." Update, 4/19: Twitch has stills.
Cristi Puiu's Aurora. This "second installment in 'six stories from the outskirts of Bucharest' stars Clara Voda, Luminita Gheorghiu, Gelu Colceag, Lucian Ifrim, Gheorghe Ifrim and Puiu in the lead with a character contemplating his options," writes Eric Lavallee at ioncinema. "Aurora is the story of Viorel, a 42-year-old technical consultant and engineer in Bucharest who decides to quit his job and put an end to the insecurity that has dominated his life since his divorce."
Hong Sang-soo's Ha Ha Ha. "The movie depicts two friends who chat about their recent trips to Tongyeong over drinks," writes Lee Hyo-won in the Korean Times. "Actor Kim Sang-kyeong plays filmmaker Cho Mun-kyung, who wants to go study in Canada, while actor Yoo Joon-sang plays his friend and film critic Park Jung-shik." As I wrote in January, this may test the patience of those who found Hong spinning his wheels in Like You Know It All. Also cast is Moon So-ri, star of Oasis.
Oliver Schmitz's Life Above All. "I am, like, dancing on air," effuses author Allan Stratton. "The film version of Chanda's Secrets that I blogged about all December from the set a few hours north of Johannesburg is an OFFICIAL SELECTION OF THE 2010 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL!!!!!!!!!" The award-winning novel tells the story of a teenager dealing with AIDS.
Update, 4/23: Pablo Trapero's Carancho. With Martina Gusman. It's "about an ambulance-chasing lawyer who gets into trouble way out of his depth," according to Patrick Frater's story for the Hollywood Reporter in November. "'This film is a classic film noir, like those of the 1940s and 1950s, where the police plot quietly became a portrait of a complicated social fabric,' said Trapero. 'It is also the description of the privacy of characters trying to survive in an unstable world, where a fact that seems minor can trigger a series of fatalities. It is, in its own way, the desperate love story between a man and a woman, immersed in a market where disgrace is the currency.'"
Daniel Vega's Octubre.
David Verbeek's R U There. This is "the story of Jitze (20) [Stijn Koomen], a professional gamer who travels around the world to compete in video game tournaments," according to a synopsis posted by IDTV Film at the IMDb. "During a stay in Taipei he unexpectedly witnesses an accident which resembles those he re-enacts in his video games on a day to day basis; this confronts him with his own mortality and his world is suddenly shaken by reality, in a violent way. He meets an intriguing Taiwanese woman in the hotel bar where he is staying, never quite figuring out whether she is an escort, masseuse or bettle nut girl. He tries to get close to her but only manages to do so in the virtual world, on Second Life which they both visit."
OUT OF COMPETITION
Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, with Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin and Freida Pinto. Description on the film's Facebook page: "A little romance, some sex, some treachery, and apart from that, a few laughs. The lives of a group of people, whose passions, ambitions and anxieties force them all into assorted troubles that run the gamut from ludicrous to dangerous."
Update, 4/19: Olivier Assayas's Carlos. Quite a lot is known about this one as it's a fairly big international production, a three-part mini-series slated for French television as well as a shortened theatrical version. Back in November, the Sundance Channel and IFC Films jointly announced that they'd acquired US rights to each, respectively: "His name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, but everybody calls him Carlos. For two decades, he was the most wanted terrorist on earth. Manipulated by Arab secret services, protected by the Eastern bloc, in various disguises and under many pseudonyms, he headed a worldwide organization responsible for spectacular killings, hijackings and bombings. This is the story of a man snatched from ignominious exile in Sudan to answer for his crimes in France. It is the story of Carlos the Jackal." Played by Édgar Ramírez. There was a lot of murmuring when Carlos wasn't mentioned in last week's announcement of the lineup; see the "Commentary" section below. Now, it's here. Update, 4/22: Jean-Michel Frodon goes longish on Carlos; in French.
Stephen Frears's Tamara Drewe. A live-action adaptation of Posy Simmonds's weekly comic strip which ran from late 2005 to late 2007 in the Guardian, whose Catherine Shoard describes the series as being "about a journalist who ruffles feathers in a rural writers' retreat." Gemma Arterton plays "a newspaper columnist whose recent nose job transforms her into a seductive flirt, to the chagrin of the quiet village's womenfolk.... The tragicomic story was inspired by a piece of classic fiction — Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd."
Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which "once again stars Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko," writes Beau Willimon in a longish profile of the director for Malibu Magazine. "But it also stars newcomers Carey Mulligan as Gekko's estranged daughter, Winnie, and Shia LaBeouf as her fiance, a young trader named Jacob Moore. The story revolves around Gordon and Jacob's efforts to warn Wall Street of impending financial doom while simultaneously tracking down the person responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor (played by Frank Langella). Rounding out the cast are Josh Brolin as an investment banking exec and Susan Sarandon as Jacob's mother. Charlie Sheen makes a cameo as Bud Fox. Highlighting the generational gaps on Wall Street was key to Stone. 'You have Gekko in his 60s, Brolin in his 40s and Shia in his 20s. So I think you have an amalgam of three generations.'"
Update, 4/23: Andrei Ujică's The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. "A defendant is looking back on his life, while his case becomes more and more of a theatrical production," reads a statement from the director at Docu-mentor. "However, this play has some special effects. Not only is the victim neither Jeanne d'Arc nor Alfred Dreyfus but an abject tyrant. Moreover, every single picture seen and commented by him is a contemporary document. Every spectator will understand after a couple of minutes, that the film consists of documentary takes only and, as the title shows, someone else has written Ceausescu's monologue."
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Gregg Araki's Kaboom. A synopsis from indieWIRE: "A sci-fi story centered around the sexual awakening of a group of college kids, Kaboom stars (ridiculously attractive) up-and-comers or near-unknowns including Roxanne Mesquida, Thomas Dekker, Rooney Mara, and Haley Bennett, in addition to Araki alum James Duval (Totally Fucked Up, Nowhere)."
Gilles Marchand's L'autre monde (Blackhole). "This thriller, set in the dangerous world of online games, stars Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (Love Songs), Louise Bourgoin (The Girl from Monaco), Pauline Etienne (Private Lessons) and Melvil Poupaud (A Christmas Tale)," reports Cineuropa's Fabien Lemercier. "Co-written by the director and Dominik Moll, L'autre monde is set in southern France in summertime. Gaspard (Leprince-Ringuet) is a happy teenager who can do as he pleases in the apartment deserted by his parents. His friends Yann (Pierre Niney) and Ludo (Ali Marhyar) are always there to fool around with and he discovers desire and perhaps love with Marion (Etienne). But behind this sunny atmosphere lies another, darker and more disturbing world: that of Audrey (Bourgoin) and her brother Vincent (Poupaud). This is the world of Black Hole, an online game where Audrey seems to change behind the mask of her avatar, Sam, who is looking for a partner in death." Update, 4/24: Ioncinema has images.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Update, 4/19: Carlos Diegues's 5x Favela. There's a Twitter account, a blog and a site — all in Portuguese, though, so going by Google's translation, the film appears to be the result of a workshop set up by Diegues, director of Bye Bye Brazil (1979) and Quilombo (1984), and Renata de Almeida Magalhães to help around 80 young talented people in the slums of Rio de Janeiro to create their own film. The result: "Five stories independent of each other, comic and tragic, which reflect the multiple faces the daily lives of slum dwellers and run away from stereotypes violence that tend to perpetuate the representation of life in communities."
Charles Ferguson's Inside Job. From Anthony Kaufman: "The Oscar-nominated docu filmmaker (No End in Sight) is debuting his latest out of competition, an inside look at the 'financial crisis.' Though I could find no info about the film online, I was told Sony Pictures Classics is handling the US release." Update, 4/19: The Playlist has a synopsis, which reminds us that the crisis of 2008 "cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia." Narrated by Matt Damon.
Sophie Fiennes's Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow. From Sciapode: "In 1993 [Anselm] Kiefer left Buchan, Germany for La Ribotte, a derelict silk factory near Barjac. From 2000 he began constructing a series of elaborate installations there, comprising 48 buildings, and a labyrinth of tunnels, bridges, lakes and towers. Traversing this landscape, the film immerses the audience in the total world and creative process of one of today’s most significant artists."
Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light). From the Sundance Institute: "In the desert of North Chile, astronomers study the ancient universeabove, while women search below for signs of their family members disappeared under Pinochet's dictatorship of 1973."
Sabina Guzzanti's Draquila - L'italia che trema. A trailer, in Italian. Update, 4/17: It's about "what has happened since last year’s earthquake in Aquila," reports Camillo de Marco for Cineuropa.
Otar Iosseliani's Chantrapas. A synopsis from Les films du losange: "Nicolas is an artist, a filmmaker who merely wants to express himself and whom everyone wishes to reduce to silence. When he first starts out in Georgia, the 'ideologists' hope to gag him, concerned that his work does not follow the set rules. In the face of their detemination, Nicolas leaves his homeland for France — the land of freedom and democracy. But the 'state of grace' will not last long."
Diego Luna's Abel. "Guaranteed to be something you've never seen before," wrote James Greenberg for the Hollywood Reporter when Luna's debut feature screened at Sundance. Abel "is the tale of a psychologically troubled nine-year-old boy who imagines he is the head of his fractured family. It's a bittersweet, if slight, story, buoyed by a winning and heartfelt performance by non-pro Christopher Ruiz-Esparza in the title role."
Update, 4/23: Lucy Walker's Countdown to Zero. From the description for Sundance: "During the cold war, public consciousness fixated on the atomic bomb. Then the cold war ended, and we retreated into denial. In fact, the danger of nuclear annihilation never disappeared; it only swelled. Countdown to Zero sweeps us into a scorching, hypnotic journey around the world to reveal the palpable possibility of nuclear disaster and frame an issue on which human survival itself hangs."
MORE TRAILERS
Takeshi Kitano's Outrage:
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry:
Hong Sang-soo's Ha Ha Ha:
Cristi Puiu's Aurora; ioncinema has two more.
A preview in French from Michel Reilhac of Mathieu Amalric's Tourneé. Subtitled clips start at 3'39"...
Update, 4/28: Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid:
Update, 4/30: Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy:
COMMENTARY
Neil Young's already placing odds on the Competition.
For those who read German, do see Ekkehard Knörer's initial thoughts on the lineup at Cargo.
"Not on the roster this year is Terrence Malick, at least not yet," report indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez and Brian Brooks. "The filmmaker's The Tree of Life was tipped as a likely contender this year, but [festival director Thierry] Frémaux said this morning that the film is not on his lineup. He left the door open for the Malick film, or others to be added later, saying that the roster was unveiled a week earlier this year. As many as six more titles are expected to be added to the Cannes Official Selection. Twenty films screened in competition last year, making it likely that four more will be added to that section as the fest approaches. The closing night film has also yet to be unveiled."
Update, 5/2: Memory allocation's run out on this entry; further updates in a fresh entry soon.