Details On Films By The Dardenne Brothers, Ken Loach & More Revealed

Paris-based distribution company, Wild Bunch is debuting a slew of upcoming films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The batch of titles comes from longtime collaborators and first-time filmmakers. Some of those names and titles include Ken Loach’s social drama “Sorry We Missed You,” filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Elia Suleiman, and Arnaud Desplechin, among others. First-time feature filmmakers on the slate include Swiss director Anthony Jerjen’s crime drama, “Inherit The Viper” and Allan Mauduit’s female-focused dark comedy “Rebelles.”

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2018

Details have been revealed for several of the movies. The Dardenne’s next picture, their eleventh feature-length film, is called “Ahmed.” It’s a contemporary tale about a Belgian teenager who plots to kill his teacher after embracing an extremist interpretation of the Koran. “It’s the tale of the radicalization of a young boy in Belgium,” Wild Bunch co-chief Vincent Maraval told ScreenDaily. “A strong aspect of the script is the way it opens a debate around the interpretation of the Koran by a young kid under the influence.”

Arnaud Desplechin’s next movie is the director’s first foray into the realm of the detective thriller. Titled “Roubaix, A Light,” the film will star Roschdy Zem as an experienced, no-nonsense police chief in the northern French city of Roubaix trying to get to the bottom of the brutal murder of an old woman by two female neighbors and lovers, labeled as alcoholics and addicts.

Ken Loach’s next film, “Sorry We Missed You” will shoot this fall which means it’ll probably be ready for Cannes next year. It sounds like a typical Ken Loach film, exploring the issue of hardship in modern-day Britain through a family scraping to get by in a casual jobs market. His last picture, the similarly themed “I, Daniel Blake” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2016.

Wild Bunch will be busy at Cannes this year also selling Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first French-language feature, “The Truth About Catherine,” starring Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve. Details have surfaced on this film too. The movie plays in the vein of “Sunset Boulevard” in the way it revolves around the myths and reality of an actress. Deneuve stars as the titular character, a diva-actress whose private persona deviates radically from the image presented in her recently published memoirs. Juliette Binoche plays her long-suffering daughter who’s forced to reunite with her estranged mom to promote the memoirs.

It’s a good bet we’ll see many of these films at Cannes or on the festival circuit next year so jot them down early for several most-anticipated titles of 2019.