The 2016 Cannes Film Festival has just released it's official lineup this morning, and I'm here to prepare you some of the films and directors who've earned a shot at the grand prize, the coveted Palme d'Or.
Easily considered the most "prestigious" event of the festival circuit, this incredibly glamorous week-long showcase of international cinema is always host to a lot of drama and excitement. The Cannes audiences is notoriously vocal and difficult to please, and they will actively BOO a film if they feel negatively towards it (which happened to poor Matthew McConaughey and Gus Van Sant last year...)
The Festival is organized into multiple sections: "In Competition" (films that compete for the top awards, like the Palme d'Or), "Un Certain Regard" (the second tier of competition, which runs parallel to the Palme d'Or race), "Out of Competition" (often American/more mainstream films which help to build international buzz), Special Screenings, and Midnight Screenings (the last two seem self-explanatory, no awards are given).
Every year, a "Jury" is formed and they vote on the films In Competition to determine who will take home the coveted awards. This year's Jury President will be Australian writer, director, and producer George Miller, whose last film, Mad Max: Fury Road, went on to win six Academy Awards and received high praise at last year's Cannes Film Festival, where it screened out of competition. The rest of his Jury will likely be announced some time in the next two weeks.
And NOW... it's time to list the chosen films for this year's festival. The lucky participants are...
In Competition:
- Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
- Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar)
- American Honey (Andrea Arnold)
- Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)
- The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
- It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
- Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont)
- Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
- Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie)
- Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
- Mal de Pierres (Nicole Garcia)
- I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)
- Ma’ Rosa (Brillante Mendoza)
- Family Photos (Cristian Mungiu)
- Loving (Jeff Nichols)
- The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
- The Last Face (Sean Penn)
- Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu)
- Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
- The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Un Certain Regard:
- Inversion (Behnam Behzadi)
- Apprentice (Boo Junfeng)
- The Stopover (Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin)
- The Dancer (Stéphanie Di Giusto)
- Clash (Mohamed Diab)
- Red Turtle (Michael Dudok De Wit)
- Harmonium (Fukada Kôji)
- Personal Affairs (Maha Haj)
- Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Eran Kolirin)
- After the Storm (Kore-eda Hirokazu)
- The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Juho Kuosmanen)
- Francisco Sanctis’s Long Night (Francisco Márquez & Andrea Testa)
- Dogs (Bogdan Mirica)
- Pericle Il Nero (Stefano Mordini)
- The Transfiguration (Michael O’Shea)
- Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)
- The Student (Kirill Serebrennikov)
Out of Competition:
- Café Society (Woody Allen) [OPENING FILM]
- The BFG (Steven Spielberg)
- Goksung (Na Hong-Jin)
- Money Monster (Jodie Foster)
- The Nice Guys (Shane Black)
Special Screenings:
- The Last Resort (Thanos Anastopoulos & Davide Del Degan)
- Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
- Last Days of Louis XIV (Albert Serra)
- Le Cancre (Paul Vecchiali)
- Exil (Rithy Panh)
Midnight Screenings:
- Gimme Danger (Jim Jarmusch)
- Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-Ho)
The festival begins on May 11th.
Click Read More to learn more about some of the films I'm most excited for (even though I'll probably have to wait until 2017 to actually see most of them...)
I've previously recommended Arnold's Fish Tank, so I'm super curious to see her newest feature. She's kept busy over the past few years directing episodes of the Amazon show Transparent and an adaptation of the classic Wuthering Heights, but this new dramedy, starring first-time actress Sasha Lane, focuses on misfit teenager who gets caught up in hard partying and young love while traveling across the country with a team of magazine salesmen. Some familiar faces like Shia LaBeouf and The Girlfriend Experience TV star Riley Keough add to the mostly amateur cast.
Julieta (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
I've recently begun diving more into Almodóvar's work (All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Law of Desire, and The Skin I Live In are all insanely good, and there's still a bunch more I need to see). This film focuses on a woman on the verge of madness, a common theme in Almodóvar's filmography, both in the present and 30 years in past, when she was living a more prosperous life. Trailers have been released for its release in Spain (where it is now playing), and it sure does look pretty! We'll likely get a release by the end of the year, or at least I'm hoping...
It’s Only the End of the World (dir. Xavier Dolan)
It’s Only the End of the World (dir. Xavier Dolan)
Xavier Dolan is my favorite director, and he's essentially synonymous with the Cannes Film Festival. He premiered his directorial debut there in 2009, I Killed My Mother, when he was only 20 FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!! Since then, all but one of his films have played at the festival. He won the Jury Prize (equivalent to 3rd place) for Mommy at the 2014 Festival, which went on to be my favorite film of last year. Mommy also reportedly earning a 13-minute standing ovation at the festival. So, yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to more from him. It's Only the End of the World is about a terminally ill writer, played by Gaspard Ulliel, who returns home to let his family know that he's dying. Léa Seydoux, Marion Cotillard, and Vincent Cassel make up the rest of the brilliant cast. This movie is gonna kill me...
Nichols' recent sci-fi film Midnight Special (still in theaters!), while not super original, was very thought-provoking and well acted. Loving is a much different film, instead focusing on an interracial couple in 1958 America, played by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, who are sentenced to prison simply for being an interracial couple in 1958 (humanity is so embarrassing...) The film is already set to open in the US on November 4th, so it's potentially a big contender for next year's award season.
Refn's last film to play at Cannes, Only God Forgives, was actually booed when it premiered, but he will always remain a festival favorite after winning the Best Director Award for Drive. I actually didn't hate Only God Forgives, so I'm still pretty damn intrigued for The Neon Demon, especially considering Refn is back to directing straight up horror films again. The film stars Elle Fanning as an aspiring model who is haunted by a group of beauty-obsessed women, who will do "whatever it takes" to get what they want. The film was recently described as Valley of the Dolls meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, meaning it'll obviously be ultra-violent, as both Drive and OGF were, so I'm for sure curious. We shall see which side the Cannes audience ultimately takes this time around. Thankfully for us, the film already has a summer release date here in the States thanks to Amazon.
Jim Jarmusch is just so fucking cool. Permanent Vacation... essential independent filmmaking. Stranger Than Paradise... maybe one of my favorite films of all-time. Broken Flowers... the best Bill Murray performance ever? Mystery Train, Night on Earth, and Coffee and Cigarettes... all dope. He's directed other great films too, and his newest film Paterson, loosely describes as a tale of a bus driver and a poet, stars Adam Driver, maybe one of the most sought after actors working today. It's gonna be great.
Personal Shopper (dir. Olivier Assayas)
The Unknown Girl (dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
Who would have thought Kristen Stewart would become the American Independent Film Queen?? Not only is she staring in Woody Allen's Café Society, the opening film at this year's festival, but she's got another Olivier Assayas film to continue to prove her growth as an actress. Assayas' last film, Clouds of Sils Maria, helped Stewart become the only American actress ever to win a Cesar Award, France's equivalent to the Oscars. In case you didn't know, Cannes is in France, so she's obviously a favorite in that country. Personal Shopper is actually a ghost story taking place in the under world of the Paris fashion scene. Let's just say I'm most definitely in!
The Unknown Girl (dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
The Dardenne Brothers sure know how to make mundaneness thrilling and suspenseful!! Their last film Two Days, One Night earned Marion Cotillard a surprising Oscar nomination in 2015 (rightfully deserved!!), and we will see if Adèle Haenel is granted with similar international success (I mean, she's already a DOUBLE Cesar winner). This film focuses on a doctor trying to uncover the identity of a woman who died after being refused treatment.
I'm also curious to learn more about Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden, Nicole Garcia's Mal de Pierres, Paul Verhoeven's Elle, and Steven Spielberg's The BFG.
Let us all hope that these films receive generous standing ovations :)
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