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Interview: Antonio Campos (Simon Killer)
3 hours ago
If Afterschool taught us to keep our teens within arm’s length reach, Antonio Campos’ latest film could serve as a public service announcement that the grip could be tighter. A lone wolf slices thru nocturnal dwellings of a Paris-scape, and as we know it, the postcard version of the City of Lights turns to muck. Much like his debut, Simon Killer (Sundance ’12) is sure to divide audiences, and this may have to do with how the film’s protagonist (brilliantly played by Brady Corbet) is fleshed out – the aud’s rapport with the character matures as the Simon mutates and potentially becomes shades of his former self. It was an exhausted and under the weather Campos I met back in Park City back in 2012 and among the items we discussed were the aesthetic choices that add to the sensorial experience, the insertion of LCD’s Dance Yrself Clean, visual »
- Eric Lavallee
Interview: Mati Diop (Simon Killer)
18 hours ago
Hailing from a family of filmmakers and musicians it’s easy to see why Antonio Campos found such a strong collaborator in Mati Diop. A filmmaker in her own right (she would win the Rotterdam Tiger award for her debut short film), the actress was a last minute arrival on the Simon Killer, but quickly immersed herself into the character and creative process – following Brady Corbet’s lead (look for a brief “Simon” appearance at the 15:20 mark of the interview below), portraying a sex worker with nurturer qualities who becomes entangled in Simon’s wallowing of self-pity, auto-distraction and derailment.
I had the chance to sit down with Diop while in Park City at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, we discussed her background in film (her screen debut was alongside Grégoire Colin in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum) briefly touching upon her filmmaking career, who she immersed herself in the »
- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne
6 April 2013 9:00 AM, PDT
#41. Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne
Gist: Suzanne and Maria are sisters who are extremely, indeed intensely close. They have a happy childhood despite the absence of their mother, who passed away when they were still little girls. Nicolas, their at times clumsy but loving father runs the household the very best he can, until the day that Suzanne gets pregnant…
Prediction: Un Certain Regard. Can’t say I was whip-lashed by Katell Quillévéré’s debut film – a difficult, almost faith-based drama and exploration-of-self entitled Poison violent, which was unveiled in the 2010 edition of Directors’ Fortnight and would go onto collect the prestigious year-end Prix Jean-Vigo. Croisette onlookers will be curious as to Quillévéré delivers another layered portrait – with shooting having began in October, we can say that this is ready for show and it helps that Sara Forestier is paired with Adèle Haenel with François Damiens (who might be at the »
- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Claire Simon’s Gare du Nord
6 April 2013 8:30 AM, PDT
#42. Claire Simon’s Gare du Nord
Gist: Claire Simon’s fourth feature film will see her applying her documentary style to the Gare du Nord railway station, a “Tower of Babel” where immigrants, European travelers and the French populous all intermingle. A multitude of characters and intersecting stories should be a given, and Simon has amassed a significant number of names for her cast, including Nicole Garcia, Monia Chakri, Francois Damiens, and Reda Kateb.
Prediction: Writer, actress, cinematographer and director Simon has been selected twice before for the Directors’ Fortnight lineup (Ca Brule, 2006; God’s Offices, 2008), but we are predicting an Un Certain Regard selection for this feature.
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- Nicholas Bell
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pascale Ferran’s Bird People
6 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
#43. Pascale Ferran’s Bird People
Gist: Starring an acting mix of Radha Mitchell, Josh Charles, Anaïs Demoustier, Clark Johnson and Roschdy Zem, this takes place in the Paris area between an airport and an international hotel in its zone. All sorts of people are there, either in transit or because they live or work in this zone. This very contemporary film tries to describe today’s world but also the hopes and dreams of each and everyone within a social environment marked by the outbreak of the supernatural.
Prediction: After shoring up at the festival with Le Baiser (1990), La sentinelle (1992), Petits arrangements avec les morts (1994) we were thinking that she’d be present with Bird People especially since production took place around mid-2012 (here is visual proof). According to this publication, the latest from Lady Chatterley helmer won’t be ready, in fact, we might wait an entire year. Up »
- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Albert Serra’s The Story of My Death
6 April 2013 7:30 AM, PDT
#44. Albert Serra’s The Story of My Death
Gist: Also known as ‘Albert Serra’s Dracula movie’, the plot focuses on the transition between the 18th century (rationalism, the Enlightenment and sensuality) and the start of the 19th century (Romanticism, obscurantism and violence), highlighting two famous characters who embodied these two worlds: Casanova and Dracula. Once again using non-actors and ‘cultural figures’ (e.g. Cinema Scope’s Mark Peranson in Birdsong), much of the details on this one are under a blanket of mystery.
Prediction: This was in our predictions last year, and I’m kind of amazed that it hasn’t shown up anywhere in the year since. Alas, here it is again! As we mentioned last year, both of Serra’s first features premiered in the Fortnight; it’s possible that the two mammoth projects he dropped last year at MacBa – The Lord Worked Wonders in Me and »
- Blake Williams
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Shinji Aoyama’s Dog Eat Dog
6 April 2013 7:00 AM, PDT
#45. Shinji Aoyama’s Dog Eat Dog
Gist: Based on Shinya Tanaka’s novel, Dog Eat Dog revolves around a 17-year-old boy named Tooma Shinogaki who lives with his father and his father’s new girlfriend in an isolated riverside town. Having to witness his father’s sadistic sexual behavior toward his girlfriend on a daily basis, Tooma grows increasingly frustrated and disgusted, but he’s also influenced by it and has a difficult time fighting the urge to try it out with a local high school girl.
Prediction: Aoyama, who adapts the screenplay himself, reteams with producer Naoki Kai (who also produced his 2007 film, Sad Vacation) and we’re predicting a Directors’ Fortnight slot for this selection. In 2001, Ayoama competed in the Main Competition with Desert Moon, as well as in 2000 for Eureka, which took home both the Fipresci and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
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- Nicholas Bell
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: János Szász’s The Notebook
6 April 2013 6:30 AM, PDT
#46. János Szász’s The Notebook
Gist: Not your remake of the Ryan Gosling film, based on Agota Kritóf‘s famous and bestselling novel of the same name (Le Grand Cahier), in a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults. Ulrich Thomsen and Ulrich Matthes are among the cast.
Prediction: Filling in the Hungarian film product quota, the veteran helmer has not been to the festival since 97′s Witman fiúk – which screened in the Un Certain Regard section. I think we might be looking at a repeat in the same section.
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- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Arnaud des Pallieres’ Michael Kohlhaas
6 April 2013 6:00 AM, PDT
#47. Arnaud des Pallieres’ Michael Kohlhaas
Gist: This is an adaptation of Heinrich Von Kleist 1811 novella of the same name. Set in the sixteenth century somewhere in the Cévennes, Michael Kohlhaas is a prosperous horse merchant leading a happy and simple family life. A fantastic quest for justice, the book – and therefore, probably, film – is an existential chronicle of one man’s leadership and rise to protect his community.
Prediction: Set for a domestic release in early July, here’s an historical epic that could really wind up in any of the major sections. Bertrand Tavernier’s The Princess of Montpensier is the closest recent film in spirit and scope, and that competed for the Palme, but then Arnaud des Pallieres isn’t exactly a major dude yet, so anything better than Un Certain Regard would be quite the gesture on Thierry’s part. The film does star last year’s »
- Blake Williams
Interview: Shane Carruth (Upstream Color)
5 April 2013 11:05 AM, PDT
After an eight year period of silence following his time travelling Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning debut Primer, Shane Carruth returns to his position not only at the helm with his latest masterpiece, Upstream Color, but once again as writer, actor, cinematographer, sound designer, editor and even distributor. Attempting the seemingly impossible, Carruth is self releasing the film in theaters on a limited run, opening today. The do-it-himself brainiac’s constructed another mind bending masterwork, this time delving into transmuted human psyches and the possibility of bio-harmony through the cellular transmission of worms and pigs and people and all things. Part distorted romance, part sci-fi thriller, the film is one of decidedly high art omniscience, and Carruth knows this. When I sat down with the filmmaker the day after the film’s premiere at Sundance this year, he was candid about his intentions for the film’s reception and visually »
- Jordan M. Smith
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Alain Guiraudie’s The Unknown Lake
5 April 2013 11:00 AM, PDT
#48. Alain Guiraudie’s The Unknown Lake
Gist: “In this love story, two men meet in a nudist resort on the banks of a lake, but one of them is a murderer.” Alain Guiraudie is one of the most interesting French filmmakers almost no one has heard of, winning the praises of Jean-Luc Godard for his short 2001 feature, That Old Dream That Moves (“The best film at the Festival de Cannes.”) and continuing on to make some of the freshest queer films in, well, ever.
Prediction: One day Guiraudie will get out of the Fortnight – three of his last four feature have played in Cannes, and they’ve all been put there – and they day may well be now…but our money is safely placed on it being four for four. If it winds up in Un Certain Regard, it’s an upgrade well-earned and overdue.
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- Blake Williams
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Frederick Wiseman’s At Berkeley
5 April 2013 10:00 AM, PDT
#49. Frederick Wiseman’s At Berkeley
Gist: “For the past five weeks, with over 100 hours of film footage, famed documentarian Frederick Wiseman has been working to make Uc Berkeley the subject of his 39th film…[and he] expects to continue working for another five weeks, collecting a total of 200 to 250 hours worth of material.” – September, 2010. Originally drawn to Uc Berkeley’s academic reputation and complexity, Wiseman intends for this documentary – the first made about the campus – to place “particular emphasis” on the management of the university, his footage ranging from freshmen moving into dorms to football games to department meetings.
Prediction: Made to be aired on PBS, we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the great documentarian return to the Fortnight, where his 2010 Boxing Gym had its premiere. Wiseman doesn’t seem to be very picky with his festival, unveiling his films pretty much wherever is most convenient (La Danse bowed in Venice, »
- Blake Williams
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Hiner Saleem’s Aga
5 April 2013 9:00 AM, PDT
#50. Hiner Saleem’s Aga
Gist: Starring Golshifteh Farahani (she was in his previous 2010 film, Si tu meurs, je te tue!), duel characters share the screen, Baran, a Kurdish independence war hero, is now police commissioner in Erbil, the capital city. No longer feeling useful in this society now at peace, he thinks about quitting the police force, but instead agrees to be stationed in a small valley, at the very borders of Iran, Turkey, and Irak. It is a lawless territory, right at the heart of illegal drug, medication and alcohol trafficking. Having arrived in the small village, he refuses to bow down to Aga Azzi, the seriously corrupt tribal chief and absolute ruler of the area. Baran meets Govend, the village school teacher, who is also rejected by the villagers.
Prediction: Un Certain Regard. Saleem took a trip to Cannes with Main Comp entry Kilometre Zero (2005) and this looks »
- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England
5 April 2013 8:00 AM, PDT
#51. Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England
Gist: Described as a psychedelic horror film, Wheatley’s latest is set during the English civil war, where a group of deserters is captured by an alchemist (Michael Smiley), who forces them to help search for what he believes is hidden in a field. Of course, after feasting on some mushrooms, things get trippy, until they realize that maybe it’s not treasure buried there.
Prediction: We’re predicting Director’s Fortnight for Wheatley’s latest, whose 2012 film Sightseers played as a “special screening” in the same lineup. The fast working Wheatley’s latest film sounds like his most experimental yet, and we’re sure it will display the same comically morbid sensibilities as his previous work. Apparently taking inspiration from the 1968 Vincent Price classic, Witchfinder General, it will be among a small group of films set during the English Civil War.
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- Nicholas Bell
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Robin Campillo’s Eastern Boys
5 April 2013 7:00 AM, PDT
#52. Robin Campillo’s Eastern Boys
Gist: Featuring Olivier Rabourdin (Of Gods and Men), this focuses on one young adult, an immigrant who hangs out with others at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris. They might be prostitutes, but there is no way of knowing for certain. Muller, a discreet man in his late fifties has his eye on one of them – Marek. One afternoon, Muller gathers his courage and speaks to him. The young man agrees to come visit Muller the following day, at his place. However the next day, when the doorbell rings, Muller doesn’t have the faintest idea that he has fallen into a trap.
Prediction: Critics’ Week. Though the section is big on first time filmmakers, we think that Laurent Cantet’s film editor and co-scribe for Palme d’Or winning The Class might have a shot — he directed the zombie flick They Came »
- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza’s Salvo
5 April 2013 6:00 AM, PDT
#53. Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza’s Salvo
Gist: Salvo is a mafia killer in Palermo. Rita is twenty and blind from birth. Salvo sneaks into Rita’s house, to kill her brother. There is a fight, a ferocious, hand to hand struggle. Salvo finally kills him, then he goes up to Rita. Those blind eyes, trembling with rage and distress, staring at him yet unseeing, seem to disturb Salvo and he closes them with his hands covered in blood. When he removes the hands, Rita’s eyes see for the first time. Heir to Bruno Dumont? We’ll see.
Prediction: Part of TorinoFlimLab, starting shooting in Summer 2010, seems to be ready to go, and has some very strong advanced buzz from those who’ve seen the (near?-) finished product. This is Grassadonia and Piazza’s first feature, meaning it’ll most likely land in the Semaine de la Critique – unless »
- Blake Williams
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bertrand Tavernier’s Quai d’Orsay
4 April 2013 7:00 PM, PDT
#54. Bertrand Tavernier’s Quai d’Orsay
Gist: Written by Christophe Blain, Abel Lanzac, and Tavernier, inspired by true events (the eve of the beginning of the Iraq war) in the life of France’s foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, this sees an impressive cast of very businessmen and women-clad dressed folks such as Thierry Lhermitte, Niels Arestrup, Anaïs Demoustier and Julie Gayet.
Prediction: There’ll be a much more anticipated Bd (French comic book) to film project on the Croisette this year, but filming began in October (with a couple of days shot in United Nations in New York – see below) and if readied in time, Tavernier who has been to Cannes on a handful of occasions – most recently for The Princess of Montpensier could be the legend filmmaker (with over 20 features under his belt) who gets added alongside the next generation of filmmakers in the Directors’ Fortnight section.
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- Eric Lavallee
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Alexei Guerman’s Hard to Be a God
4 April 2013 6:00 PM, PDT
#55. Alexei Guerman’s Hard to Be a God
Gist: While it may possibly be released as History of the Arkanar Massacre, we’re hoping this retains the same name as the novel it’s based on by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. On another planet, currently going through its Middle Ages, a group of historians from Earth are living there pretending to be normal members of the populous. The protagonist, Don Rumata, is disgusted and disturbed by some of the atrocities he witnesses, but the earthlings are unable to intervene so that they do not change the course of the history of the planet. They are there only to help and protect the few individuals that seem different from everyone else, whose knowledge can help benefit the rest of the planet. Rumata is charged with finding a specific person being held against his will.
Prediction: The infrequent working Aleksei German has »
- Nicholas Bell
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years A Slave
4 April 2013 5:00 PM, PDT
#56. Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years A Slave
Gist: After the divisive and award-winning Shame from 2011, McQueen’s latest is a period piece set in the 1800s about a man from the north who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the deep south on a plantation in Louisana and its loaded with Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Quvenzhane Wallisi, Paul Dano, Alfre Woodard.
Prediction: After premiering Hunger in the Un Certain Regard section and skipping out on the fest with his last, Fox Searchlight just announced a December release date and THR updated the status of the pic stating that this won’t be in time. We were thinking a definite Main Comp showing but now the chances are slim. Look for Venice, Tiff and/or Nyff for its North American premiere.
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- Moen Mohamed
2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Spike Jonze’s Her
4 April 2013 4:00 PM, PDT
#57. Spike Jonze’s Her
Gist: In the not so distant future, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user’s every need; to Theodore’s surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
Prediction: Either Main Competition or Out of Comp, nowhere else. The project is just too big (in arthouse terms), and Jonze – who’s yet to make a great film that doesn’t involve the pen of Charlie Kaufman – is looking to prove that his name doesn’t need to be dependent on anyone else’s. That Hollywood Reporter article from last week seemed to indicate this won’t be ready in time, but stranger things have happened. »
- Blake Williams
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