Pierre Niney fooling around on the first day of filming for Michel Gondry’s The Book of Solutions Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Directors' Fortnight |
The edition marks the first under the leadership of Julien Rejl as artistic director of what is now called the Quinzaine des Cinéastes (rather than Réalisateurs - making it more “gender inclusive”).
Premiere for Deserts, by Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaidi as part of Directors' Fortnight Photo: UniFrance |
Gondry, the Oscar-winning writer-director of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, will present The Book of Solutions, described as an off-beat existential comedy starring Pierre Niney and Blanche Gardin.
English language titles include: The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed, the feature debut of actor-turned-director Joanna Arnow. Two more Stateside offerings feature in the array — The Sweet East marks the solo feature debut of Sean Price Williams, the acclaimed cinematographer of Good Time; and Riddle Of Fire, the feature debut of Weston Razooli.
Michel Gondry will be back on the Croisette for the first time in eight years Photo: UniFrance |
A special screening will be hosted for Abraham’s Valley, a film by late Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira.
The 55th edition also will pay tribute to Malian film-maker Souleymane Cissé who will receive the Carrosse d’Or award. The Quinzaine des Cinéastes will take place in Cannes from 17 to 26 May. Meanwhile French filmgoers can see part of the selection between June 7 and 18 in about 30 arthouse cinemas throughout France.
In other Cannes news France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (ACID) has unveiled the nine features it will showcase in its parallel Cannes section, running May 17-26. ACID focuses on films without French distributors and first features.
Six titles are world premieres including Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s animated family film Chicken For Linda!, which stars Laetitia Dosch and Clotilde Hesme in a story about a mother who feels guilty for punishing her daughter and tries to make it up to her by making her favourite chicken dish.
Directors’ Fortnight line-up
- The Goldman Case/Le Procés Goldman (Cédric Kahn) - opening film
- In Our Day/Woo-ri-ui-ha-ru (Hong Sang-soo) - closing film
- In Flames (Zarrar Kahn)
- Légua (Filipa Reis, Joao Miller Guerra)
- The Book of Solutions/Le Livre des Solutions (Michel Gondry)
- Mambar Pierrette (Rosine Mbakam)
- Riddle of Fire/Conte de feu (Weston Razooli) - first feature
- The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed (Joanna Arnow)
- The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams)
- A Prince/Un Prince (Pierre Creton)
- A Song Sung Blue/Xiao bai chuan (Zihan Geng)
- Abraham’s Valley/Val Abraham (Manoel de Oliveira) - special screening
- Agra (Kanu Behl)
- The Other Laurens/L’autre Laurens (Claude Schmitz)
- Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell/Bên trong vô kén vàng (Thien An Pham)
- Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry/Merle merle mûre (Elene Naveriani)
- Grace/Blazh (IIya Povolotosky) first feature
- She is Conann/Conann (Bertrand Mandico)
- Creatura (Elena Martin Gimeno)
- Deserts (Faouzi Bensaidi)