Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful” and Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” look set to premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with Doug Liman’s “Fair Game’ likely to join them in some capacity.
It’s a long time coming for the Javier Bardem starrer “Biutiful” which was actually tipped to feature at last year’s festival before falling off the map. A “return” to the Croisette for the film in 2010 seemed likely as was the case for Liman’s political thriller starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn which has already seen some positive early word and Leigh’s Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton led follow up to 2008’s much-lauded “Happy-Go-Lucky.”
The full Cannes line up is set to be announced tomorrow morning though, and as previously noted, may have a few gaps as a number of “key selections will likely be made after the announcement.”
That said, many films are already starting to shine through — on the French front, Francois Ozon’s “Politche” starring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu looks set for an out-of-competition run while Xavier Beauvois’ “Of Gods And Men” and Mathieu Amalric’s “Tournee” may end up in either the Director’s Fortnight sidebar if not part of official selection.
The usually strong South Korean contingent which brought Park Chan-Wook ‘s “Thirst” and Bong Joon-Ho’s “Mother” last year will likely see Lee Chang-Dong’s competition entry “Poetry,” Hong Sang-Soo’s “Ha Ha Ha” in the Un Certain Regard sidebar and Im Sang-Soo’s horror-remake “The Housemaid” in an as of yet unknown category.
Other films now tipped to feature in the official selection include:
• Julian Schnabel’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict examination “Miral,” starring Willem Dafoe, Alexander Siddig and Freida Pinto
• Julie Bertucelli’s “The Tree” starring last year’s Cannes Best Actress winner Charlotte Gainsbourg
• Susanne Bier’s small-town drama “The Revenge”
• Hungarian pics “The Turin Horse” by Bela Tarr and Kornel Mundruczo’s “The Frankenstein Project”
• Pablo Trapero’s Ricardo Darin-starrer “Carancho”
• Daniele Luchetti’s “La nostra vita”
Speculation on the eve of an official announcement seems a bit redundant so we’ll keep it short but after word spread about appearances from Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” and Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life,” the failure of either to show is likely to disappoint many.
Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” and Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” are pretty much certainties for out-of-competition appearances while Jean-Luc Godard’s “Socialisme” and Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” will probably feature in the official selection.
Stephen Frears’ “Tamara Drewe” was also mentioned recently as a strong candidate to appear along side Takeshi Kitano’s yakuza thriller “Outrage”; Lee Chang-dong’s tale of a grandmother and her teenage grandson “Poetry”; Olivier Assayas’ epic on Venezuelan terrorist, Carlos The Jackal, “Carlos”; Bertrand Blier’s dark comedy “The Sound of Ice Cubes”; Cristi Puiu’s crime story “Aurora” as well as Vincent Gallo’s 16mm story of a terminally ill girl, “Promises Written In Water.”