Cannes 2013 Poster |
The Coen brothers Joel and Ethan will be back on the Croisette for their Sixties-set folk music extravganza Inside Llewyn Davis as part of the official Cannes Film Festival Competition line-up revealed in Paris this morning by artistic director Thierry Fremaux and president Gilles Jacob.
Judging from the online trailer it is trademark Coen siblings with lashings of dry wit and perplexing angst. The film follows Oscar Isaac as Llewyn Davis, a struggling, aspiring musician living in Greenwich Village at the height of folk scene in the 1960s. It has been inspired in part by musician Dave van Ronk’s posthumous memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street.
The line-up which demonstrates a strong American flavour, has been selected from more than 1858 submissions, according to the organisers. It looks top heavy with many Cannes veterans, among them Steven Soderbergh with his Liberace biopic Behind The Candelabra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon and Roman Polanski with Venus In Fur, a French-language adaptation of a two-hander Broadway play by David Ives and featuring Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric.
Fremaux told the assembled media horde: “Soderbergh had initially wanted to present Candelabra out of competition, but I implored him via email to ‘say yes’ to a competition slot, and he agreed. After all his first film, Sex, Lies, And Videotape, played at Cannes and won the Palme d’Or, and we wish him the same fortune with this his latest film.”
Polanski who won the Palme d’Or for The Pianist just over a decade ago, also figures in a special out-of-competition slot with a motor-racing documentary Weekend Of A Champion.
Inside Llewyn Davis |
Of the newer generation Nichlas Windig Refn is reunited with his Drive star Ryan Gosling for Only God Forgives, an ultra violent revenge thriller with Gosling playing a British gangster in Bangkok’s criminal underworld. Alexander Payne fields Nebraska. James Gray, another Festival favourite, will present The Immigrant with Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner.
Iran’s Asghar Farhadi (who made the memorable A Separation) will appear in competition for the first time with The Past, a romantic drama set in Paris and starring Berenice Bejo (The Artist) and Tahar Rahim (A Prophet).
Several French directors are to the fore including François Ozon’s Jeune Et Jolie, Arnaud Desplechin’s Jimmy Picard with Benicio del Toro and set in the US as well as Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s Un Chateau En Italie. Outside the competition Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) makes his English-language directing debut with Blood Ties, a thriller starring Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Marion Cotillard and Mila Kunis.
They will all be vying in competition for the coveted Palme d’Or and other prizes discerned by a jury headed by Steven Spielberg in the festival’s 66th edition, which runs from 15 to 26 May.
The Un Certain Regard section, which often springs more surprises than the Competition, opens with some glitz in the shape of Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring while French director Rebecca Ziotowski’s career is on an upward trajectory with her second feature Grand Central, a complex romance against France’s nuclear power industry, featuring Tahar Ramin and Lea Seydou.
The Sundance prizewinner Fruitvale Station by Ryan Coogler has a berth alongside Claire Denis’s The Bastards and James Franco’s As I Lay Dying.
The Un Certain Regard jury is headed up by Swedish director Thomas Vinterberg (also a Cannes fave).
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Only God Forgives by Nicolas Winding Refn
Borgman by Alex Van Warmerdam
The Great Beauty / La Grande Bellezza by Paolo Sorrentino
Behind The Candelabra by Steven Soderbergh
Venus In Fur / La Venua À La Fourrure by Roman Polanksi
Nebraska by Alexander Payne
Just 17 / Jeune & Jolie by François Ozon
Shield Of Straw / Wara No Tate by Takashi Milke
La Vie D’Adele by Abdeliatif Kechine
Soshite Chichi Ni Naru by Kore-Eda Hirokazu
Tian Zhu Ding by Jia Zhangke
Grisgris by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
The Immigrant by James Gray
Le Passe by Asghar Farhadi
Heli by Amat Escalante
Jimmy P / Un Indien Des Plaines by Arnaud Desplechin
Michael Kohlaas by Arnaud Despallières
Inside Llewyn Davis by Ethan and Joel Coen
Un Chateau En Italie by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
OUT OF COMPETITION
Blood Ties by Guillaume Canet
All Is Lost by J.C Chandor
The Great Gatsby By Baz Luhrmann Opening film on 15 May out of competition
Zulu by Jérome Salle) Closing film on 26 May out of competition
The Bling Ring |
UN CERTAIN REGARD
The Bling Ring by Sofia Coppola Opening film on
Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowski
Sarah Préfère La Course by Chloé Robichaud
Anonymous by Mohammad Rasoulof
La Jaula De Oro by Diego Quemada-Diez
L’Image Manquante by Rithy Panh
Bends by Flora Lau
L’Inconnu Du Lac by Alain Guiraudie
Miele by Valeria Golino
As I Lay Dying by James Franco
Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan by Lav Diaz
Les Salauds by Claire Denis
Fruitvale Station by Ryan Coogler
Death March by Adolfo Alix jr.
Omar by Hany Abu-Assad
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Otdat Konci by Taisia Igumentseva
Seduced And Abandoned by James Toback
Weekend Of A Champion by Roman Polanksi
Stop The Pounding Heart by Roberto Minervini
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight by Stephen Frears
Blind Detective by Johnnie To
Monsoon Shootout by Amit Kumar