Guide to the official competition of the 70th Cannes film festival
Last thursday Thierry Frémaux and Pierre Lescure announced the official selection of the 70th Cannes film festival. The direction of the festival received 1930 films and only 49 films participate in the official selection. This year 29 countries are presented in the official selection that makes the festival truly international.
Only 18 films are looking for being awarded with the Palme d'Or as the highest prize at the festival. Pedro Almodavr as a President of the jury alongside its members will take this decision.
We will briefly analyze the main tendencies of the official competition of this year.
“French” films: refugees, identity, forbidden love and history
In 2017 we have 4 films by French film directors or with French actors as the main characters.
One of the main topic of European policy of recent years is the EU migration dilemma. In 2015 Jacques Audiard with his Dheepan was awarded with Palme d'Or. Michael Haneke treats this subject in Happy End. A drama about an aristocratic French family lived in Calais, a region where a lot of refugees settled. Isabelle Huppert (Golden Globe in 2017), legendary Jean-Louis Xavier Trintignant starring in A Man and a Woman by Claude Lelouch and Mathieu Kassovitz (3 César Awards).
Courtesy of Les Films du Losange
Cannes “newcomer” Robin Campillo examines the social ignoring and indifference in his first film presenting in Cannes 120 battements par minute (120 beats per minute) about Act Up.
Courtesy of Celine Niesza
French cinema after the Second World War is famous for being iconoclastic, experimental, full of narrative ambiguity and love scenes. François Ozon continues the New Wave's traditions and the “cinema of the body” presenting this year L'amant double: “Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.”
The forbidden love, sensuality and art appear in the Redoubtable (Redoubtable) by Oscar awarded Michel Hazanavicius. It is a love story of legendary film director Jean-Luc Godard and 17-year old actress Anne Wiazemsky based on her book.
Rodin by Jacques Doillon is a biopic film about progenitor of modern sculpture Auguste Rodin (Cannes best actor awarded Vincent Lindon).
“Russian” production: love and loveless
Two times awarded in Cannes Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev presents his Nelubov (Loveless). It is “an uncompromising portrait of the struggles of a loveless family.” “A couple going through a divorce must team up to find their son who has disappeared during one of their bitter arguments.”
Courtesy of Wild Bunch
Courtesy of Wild Bunch
Too many stars on the Croisette
The 70th Cannes film festival is an anniversary. We are waiting for a lot of stars, and, of course, movies with stars. A true “star explosion” is The Beguiled by Sofia Coppola. It is an American drama based on the novel by Thomas P. Cullinan starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning.
Asian cinema
We have more and more Asian films in the programs of European festivals, specially South Korean films. In 2017 there are two South Koreas' films: Okja (with Tilda Swinton) by one of the most successful filmmaker of this country Bong Joon-Ho and Geu-Hu (The Day After) by Hong Sangsoo. Bong Joon-Ho is the favorite film director of Quentin Tarantino, and he is doing the successful commercial and arthouse movies. Hong Sangsoo is considered commercially successful but he is also well-known in the international festival movement. Hong was awarded in Cannes in 2010 and in Locarno in 2013 and 2015. Inspiring and turbulent Japanese art-house is representing by Naomi Kawase and here Hikari (Radiance).
The list of the official selection of films of Cannes Film festival 2017
