Cannes 2012. Cineuropa's Contenders

Michael Haneke, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant
on the set of Amour

It's been a couple of weeks since the French magazine Premiere posted "Cannes 2012: Le buzzomètre," a list of over 30 films, each of which were assigned a numerical probability of its making the lineup at Cannes this year. Speculation has only grown hotter, of course, with an official announcement slated for April 19; Critics' Week and the Directors' Fortnight will follow on April 23 and 24, respectively. "Paris is rife with rumors about who will make it," reports Fabien Lemercier at Cineuropa. "Several films by 'big fish' have not been seen yet, and many who have already shown their film are eagerly awaiting news."

A few days ago, a French blog pulled an April Fools' Day prank that thoroughly ticked off Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux. The blog claimed to have seen the full lineup, "briefly published on the official Cannes Film Festival website before hastily being pulled down," as Nancy Tartaglione reports at Deadline. You may have noticed that we completely ignored that mini-brouhaha as it unfolded; anyone even slightly familiar with the selection process knows that the final lineup won't be set until days, or more likely, hours before it's announced, and even then, a few surprise tweaks usually follow.

But Fabien Lemercier's list is no joke. He claims no certainty whatsoever for any title beyond the two that have already been announced, festival opener Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson and the first Out of Competition entry, Madagascar 3. You'll want to see his comments on each of the titles in the running; here, I've stripped down the contenders to title and director and very loosely grouped them according to what Lemercier hears about how close they are to making the grade. Several appeared on that buzzomètre; many others, though, are fresh to the rumor mill.

Very Likely

• Amour, Michael Haneke.
• Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg.
• On the Road, Walter Salles. (New stills.)
• Rust & Bone, Jacques Audiard.
• Angel's Share, Ken Loach. (Trailer.)

Quite Possible

• Beyond the Hills, Cristian Mungiu. (Stills.)
• Elefante blanco, Pablo Trapero. (Trailer.)
• Post Tenebras Lux, Carlos Reygadas.
• Big House, Matteo Garrone.
• Laurence Anyways, Xavier Dolan.
• Loving Without Reason, Joachim Lafosse.
• Low Life, James Gray.
• The Burial, Terrence Malick.
• Mud, Jeff Nichols.
• Stoker, Park Chan-wook.
• Like Someone in Love, Abbas Kiarostami ("which apparently has not yet been viewed").
• In Another Country, Hong Sang-soo.
• Le grand soir, Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern.
• In the House, François Ozon.
• Foxfire, Laurent Cantet.
• Après mai, Olivier Assayas.
• In the Fog, Sergei Loznitsa.
• Paradise, Ulrich Seidl.
• A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan, Roman Coppola.
• No, Pablo Larraín.
• Holly Motors, Leos Carax.
• The We and the I, Michel Gondry.
• Pierre de patience, Atiq Rahimi.
• After the Battle, Yousry Nasrallah.
• Journal de France, Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret.

Who Knows, Maybe

• Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik.
• Place Beyond the Plains, Derek Cianfrance.
• The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson.
• The Land of Hope, Sono Sion.
• Gebo et L'ombre, Manoel de Oliveira.
• Rêve et silence, Jaime Rosales.
• Historia de la meva mort, Albert Serra.
• The Breakdown Circle and the Cover-Ups of Alabama, Felix van Groeningen.
• The Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre, Aleksei German.
• Dau, Ilya Khrzhanovsky.

Out of Competition?

• Vous n'avez encore rien vu, Alain Resnais.
• Prometheus, Ridley Scott.

Directors' Fortnight? Critics' Week?

• Opération Libertad, Nicolas Wadimoff.
• Berberian Sound Studio, Peter Strickland.
• The Deep, Baltasar Kormákur.
• The Hijacking, Tobias Lindholm.
• La Pirogue, Moussa Touré.
• Lore, Cate Shortland.
• Beasts of Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin.
• An Estonian in Paris, Ilmar Raag.
• Les Adorés, Hélène Fillières.
• Ernest & Celestine, Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner.
• J'enrage de son absence, Sandrine Bonnaire.
• Confession of a Child of the Century, Sylvie Verheyde.

Lemercier: "And for those who like riddles, there is also talk of a Bulgarian first feature and a Belgian first feature at the Critics' Week, a Korean animation film at the Directors' Fortnight, and a Colombian film somewhere."

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