Last night the official selection was announced for the Cannes Film Festival. Characterised by the organisers as a "renewal year", 2006 does welcome a few new filmmakers to its very exclusive members club, while rewarding loyal regulars with coveted competition slots.
Wong Kar-Wai will preside over this year's jury, which features the usual mix of international actors (Monica Bellucci, Zhang Ziyi, Helena Bonham Carter, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth) and directors (Patrice Leconte, Lucrecia Martel, Elia Suleiman), but this year excludes academics, producers or writers. The Caméra d'Or jury (Best First Feature) will be presided over by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, double Palme D'Or-winners for Rosetta and The Child.
The official selection is made up of 55 films (including a mind-boggling 48 world premieres) representing 30 countries. However only 20 of these are in competition for the Palme D'Or.
The Festival opens with the dreaded adaptation of the over-rated and over-read The Da Vinci Code, from the Bland-and-Blander team of Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. The out-of-competition Cannes opener is usually a star-filled, paparazzi-baiting affair and is rarely taken seriously.
Not so the Official Competition. Once again, some of the world's most respected auteurs return: 2006 sees eagerly awaited new films from Nanni Moretti (Golden Palm in 2001 with The Son's Room), Aki Kaurismäki (Grand Prix 2002 for The Man Without a Past) and Ken Loach (Prize for Best Script in 2002 with Sweet Sixteen). Riding great advance buzz from its Spanish screenings is Volver, the new film from Cannes-habitué Pedro Almodovar (Best Director Prize in 1999 for All About My Mother) starring Penelope Cruz.
Along with many movie bloggers out there, I'm quite excited about the new crop of American indies making the cut: Sofia Coppola's intriguing period piece Marie Antoinette, Richard Linklater's ensemble drama Fast Food Nation and Richard Kelly's follow-up to Donnie Darko, the sci-fi musical Southland Tales. At 30, Kelly will be the youngest director in the 2006 competition.
Article comments
1 - Steve C.
Not that I don't have love for Kelly and Linklater and all, but I think I'm most excited by Flanders, the new Bruno Dumont movie. His films are divisive enough that the reactions to them are entertaining even if the film isn't.
2 - Matt Riviera
I know, I moan about the line-up being heavy on the American heavyweights and don't even mention that it also includes eagerly awaited European titles such as Lucas Belvaux's The Weakest is Always Right and Bruno Dumont's Flanders. Algerian director (and Flanders producer) Rachid Bouchareb also has Indigenes (Days Of Glory), about Africans fighting for France during the Second World War.
Another film which should be worth a look is Andrea Arnold's Red Road. The British director's follow-up to Oscar-nominated short Wasp is part of Lars von Trier's experimental "The Advance Party" project, which sees three different promising writer-directors make three different features all using the same actors playing the same characters.
Dane Mikkel Norgaard (The Old Firm), BAFTA-winning Scot Morag McKinnon (Worms) and Arnold have been cherrypicked on the strength of their shorts and must now obey Von Trier's draconian rules. In true Dogma style, there is to be creativity in constraint: the rules are designed to force collaboration on the three filmmakers. The features are shot digitally, on location, in six weeks and in Glasgow.
3 - Steve C.
Funny, I just saw Wasp on the Sundance Channel. Most of the time, I don't think the Academy knows what it's doing in regards to short films, but that one was pretty damn good. I'd be interested to see her first feature. Also, the Von Trier factor helps.