What do y'all think the Cannes lineup will be?

Pretty much confirmed at this point:
AIR DOLL - Hirokazu Koreeda
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Quentin Tarantino
LOOKING FOR ERIC - Ken Loach

Strong Possibilities:
AGORA - Alejandro Amenabar
ANTICHRIST - Lars von Trier
BRIGHT STAR - Jane Campion
BROKEN EMBRACES - Pedro Almodovar
FACE - Ming-liang Tsai
FISH TANK - Andrea Arnold
HEARTLESS - Philip Ridley
THE ILLUSIONIST - Sylvain Chomet
MOTHER - Joon-ho Bong
MR. NOBODY - Jaco van Dormael
TETRO - Francis Ford Coppola
VENGEANCE - Johnnie To
THE WHITE RIBBON - Michael Haneke

Apparently competing for the 3 French slots:
L'ARMEE DU CRIME - Robert Guediguian
LES HERBES FOLLES - Alain Resnais
PERSECUTION - Patrice Chereau
UN PROPHETE - Jacques Audiard
36 VUES DU PIC SAINT-LOUP - Jacques Rivette

And a very probable doco contender
GARBAGE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN - Fatih Akin

This is just what I've picked up from around the web. If Du-na Bae could win Best Actress for Air Doll it would just make my life!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: puxzkkx,

If I can guess a Palme d'Or winner now, I'd choose "Face" or "The White Ribbon".

Impossible to guess Palme d'or winners because of the quirkiness of juries and the lack of knowledge of any of the films.

If the film clicks with the jury, the Alain Resnais film could compete. He will be 87 in June, has never won, and is one of the four or five greatest living directors. And his recent work has been quite strong.

quote:

Originally posted by seanflynn:
Impossible to guess Palme d'or winners because of the quirkiness of juries and the lack of knowledge of any of the films.

If the film clicks with the jury, the Alain Resnais film could compete. He will be 87 in June, has never won, and is one of the four or five greatest living directors. And his recent work has been quite strong.

NAME-DROPPING ALERT: I once had le plaisir of meeting M. Resnais—it's so fabulous to be ME LOL! Seriously, I agree, Alain Resnais really is one of the best living directors.

This thread makes me sad, b/c I can't go this year.

Also, you forgot UP! unless you were just talking about Competition films.

quote:

Originally posted by seanflynn:
Impossible to guess Palme d'or winners because of the quirkiness of juries and the lack of knowledge of any of the films.

If the film clicks with the jury, the Alain Resnais film could compete. He will be 87 in June, has never won, and is one of the four or five greatest living directors. And his recent work has been quite strong.

I was referring to which two films seemed the most likely to be the "Cannes type".

As for Resnais, unless the film is excellent I can't really see Cannes rewarding him just because he's famous and really old. The Cannes juries are usually more resistant to sentimental pull than, say, the Venice juries.

Well... they are in France... and the french are very chovinist in that sense.

Jose - The Class won the Palme d'or last year, which was the first time since the early 1980s. Cannes juries are majority non-French; most French films in competition find at least a partially hostile press; and at the end of the day it is about as non-chauvinistic festival, at least in terms of its prizes, among the major wons in the world.

Here is the latest guessing:

Cannes taps heavy hitters
Top international filmmakers onboard for fest
By TODD MCCARTHYThe upcoming Cannes Film Festival will be swimming in top international filmmakers, as directors including Ang Lee, Jane Campion, Michael Haneke, Quentin Tarantino, Ken Loach, Pedro Almodovar, Bong Joon-ho, Marco Bellocchio, Lars von Trier and Johnnie To expect to square off for the Palme d'Or come May 13.
With one week to go before the April 23 announcement of the Official Selection, fest director Thierry Fremaux and his selection committee still have numerous films to watch, so this weekend will tell the tale as far as several titles are concerned. Unlike his predecessor Gilles Jacob, who tended to accept or reject films as he saw them over a period of months, Fremaux prefers to keep his options open to a certain extent until he's seen everything, leaving anxious filmmakers, distribs and sales companies in the dark until the final bell.

All the same, the lineup for the competition has come into focus in recent days, creating an image of a fest that will be heavy on Asian and Euro titles, light on films from Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East and iffy where Hollywood is concerned.

Tarantino's WWII saga "Inglourious Basterds," toplining Brad Pitt, was locked in a couple of weeks ago, but fest toppers only saw Lee's "Taking Woodstock," set during the fabled 1969 music event, this week and extended an immediate invitation to the Focus Features release. Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Emile Hirsch head the cast.

Word is that Francis Ford Coppola's Argentine family drama "Tetro," with Vincent Gallo, will be viewed imminently by the committee, and that Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant" makeover, starring Nicolas Cage, is jockeying for a special screening or midnight slot. An almost certain midnight attraction will be Sam Raimi's horror-thriller "Drag Me to Hell," a Universal release toplining Justin Long and Alison Lohman that was very well received in incomplete form at the recent SXSW Film Festival.

Less confirmed word has it that Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," featuring Heath Ledger's final performance in a role that, after his death, came to be shared with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, may make its debut in Cannes.

Fest announced early on that Pete Docter's animated Pixar feature "Up" will open the fest, which runs through May 24.

Other English-language fare will include Campion's U.K. production "Bright Star," a drama about the romance of 19th-century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, starring Ben Wishaw and Abbie Cornish; Cannes regular von Trier's "Antichrist," a horror drama with Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple who retreat to a secluded forest cabin after the death of their son; Loach's "Looking for Eric," about a troubled adolescent soccer fan who's counseled by former star Eric Cantona; prolific helmer To's French-financed "Vengeance," starring Johnny Hallyday as a hitman-turned-chef who heads to Hong Kong to avenge his daughter's death; and possibly English director Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank," toplining Michael Fassbender in a tale of a 15-year-old whose life is turned upside down by her mother's new boyfriend. Pic looks to be in the Official Selection, although in which category remains uncertain.

Haneke's German entry, "The White Ribbon," examines incipient fascism at a rural school in 1913; like Coppola's film, it was shot in black-and-white. Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," which has already opened in Spain, is a multistrand melodrama starring Penelope Cruz, and vet Italian master Bellocchio's "Vincere" stars Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi in a study of Mussolini's secret lover and the couple's son Albino.

South Korea and China will be heavily represented this year. From the former come "The Host" director Bong's "Mother," a thriller about a woman's attempt to determine who framed her antisocial son for a ghastly murder, and "Oldboy" helmer Park Chan-wook's "Thirst," a vampire tale about a small-town priest transformed into a neck-biter by a medical experiment gone wrong.

Flying the Chinese flag will be "Summer Palace" director Lou Ye's "Spring Fever," about a young threesome overcome with erotic longings, and possibly Lu Chuan's "City of Life and Death" (aka "Nanking! Nanking!"), a large-scale telling of the 1937 massacre of Nanking by the Japanese army.

Also very likely for the competition are Malaysian auteur Tsai Ming-liang's French-financed "Face," about a Taiwanese director arrived in Paris to make a film about Salome, starring Mathieu Amalric, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Nathalie Baye, Laetitia Casta and Jean-Pierre Leaud; and Japanese fest regular Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Air Doll," about the love affair between a videostore clerk and an inflatable sex doll.

Two other possibilities are Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman's first feature since 2002, "The Time That Remains," the story of a Palestinian family from the '40s to the present day, and Belgian director Jaco von Dormael's time-jumping fantasy "Mr. Nobody," with Diane Kruger and Jared Leto.

The final selection of French titles is regularly made at the very last minute, but the titles nearest the front of the line are Alain Resnais' "Les Herbes folles," Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet," Bruno Dumont's "Hadewijch," Xavier Giannoli's "In the Beginning," Robert Guediguian's "The Army of Crime" and Catherine Corsini's "Leaving."

Prominent in the Un Certain Regard sidebar will be two Romanian features: "Police, Adjective," directed by Corneliu Porumboiu ("12:08: East of Bucharest"), and "Tales From the Golden Age," an omnibus film produced by Palme laureate Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"), with two episodes directed by him and others helmed by proteges.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,

quote:

Originally posted by JOSE:
Well... they are in France... and the french are very chovinist in that sense.

Except the Cannes juries are made up of people from all over the world. You'll find every year that very few French people serve on the Cannes jury.

Cannes is far less chauvistic than San Sebastian for one example.

And its fine that San Sebastian spotlights Spanish film - its just that the leading Spanish festival favors Spanish film far more than Cannes favors French. And remember, Cannes is officially part of the French government.

Best Actress possibilities:
SABINE AZEMA - LES HERBES FOLLES
DU-NA BAE - AIR DOLL
JANE BIRKIN - 36 VUES DU PIC SAINT-LOUP
ABBIE CORNISH - BRIGHT STAR
PENELOPE CRUZ - BROKEN EMBRACES
EMMANUELLE DEVOS - IN THE BEGINNING
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG - ANTICHRIST or PERSECUTION
YUANYUAN GAO - CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH
KATIE JARVIS - FISH TANK
HYE-JA KIM - MOTHER
DIANE KRUGER - MR. NOBODY
VIRGINIE LEDOYEN - THE ARMY OF CRIME
GIOVANNA MEZZOGIORNO - VINCERE
BLANCA PORTILLO - BROKEN EMBRACES
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS - LEAVING
JULIE SOKOLOWSKI - HADEWIJCH
ELIA SULEIMAN - THE TIME THAT REMAINS
MARIBEL VERDU - TETRO
RACHEL WEISZ - AGORA

quote:

Originally posted by JOSE:
Well... they are in France... and the french are very chovinist in that sense.

If you look up a listing of Cannes winners you will see France only wins occasionally and even though they won last year with "The Class" it had been more than 20 years since the country's last win with "Under the Sun of Satan" in 1987. You'd have to go another 20 years for the last French winner before that which was "A Man and a Woman" in 1966. If one was to say any countries dominate the Cannes Film Festival they would be Italy and the United States rather than France.

Was L'Enfant Belgian?

The Dardennes brothers, directors of L'Enfant, are indeed Belgian, not French.

Pretty much the same thing, Hercule.

Au contraire, Miss Marple. That's like saying Canada is the same as the US.

The French actually tend to be very disdainful and snobbish about the Wahloons (French speakers) of Belgium. The Dardennes have gotten no extra level of acceptance at Cannes because of their shared language.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,

quote:

Originally posted by stevie:
Pretty much the same thing, Hercule.

Umm, no. Not at all. The official languages of Belgium are Dutch, French, and German, and the government is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, which is very un-French, s'il vous plait...

Finally you two agree and it only took Belgium to bring you together.

They speak Flemish in Belgium, too - it is one of the official languages if I'm not mistaken.

Belgium has a lot in common with France but it is more influenced by Dutch culture than by French culture.

One of the huge differences is that France is united by its national language and shared religion (Catholicism - yes, I know there is a substantial Arab Moslem minority), whereas the nearly even divided between French-speaking Catholics and Flemish-speaking Protestants, with only Brussels being geographically a shared area. It's a very fragile country these days; they went months without a government when no one could put together a majority in their Parliament.

There is very little Belgian identity, whereas the French tend to deeply proclaim their French-ness.

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