\With winter’s chill still felt, the spring might seem far away, and while we will have our attention on the Berlin International Film Festival and SXSW in March, we’re only a few months away from the Cannes Film Festival. Easily the most prestigious movie festival on the calendar, we’ll soon start to see talk heat up about what films will — and won’t — be making an appearance. And while Lars von Trier‘s hugely buzzed “Nymphomaniac” has been grabbing headlines in recent days as buyers swarm the movie in Berlin, it won’t be headed to the Cannes for a premiere like many speculated. But not for the reason you’re thinking of.
While the Lars von Trier has been declared persona non grata, it turns out that “Nymphomaniac” was trying to make the deadline for inclusion, but the massive two-film effort simply won’t be finished in time to submit for consideration. “Four editors were working around the clock to meet the Cannes deadline, but we had to give it up – after 268 script pages, 11 weeks of shooting and with 100 hours of material it would have been [a race] to finish the two films in time for the festival,” producer and CEO of Zentrope Entertainments Peter Aalbæk Jensen told Cineuropa. “But there is absolutely no bad blood between us.”
In case you’re wondering, feature films must be submitted officially to the festival by March 14th. But we’re also sure organizers would bend the rules if it meant getting one of the year’s most talked about films on the red carpet. But mostly it just seems that von Trier, who shot the film last fall, doesn’t want to rush the cut on two movies, and that’s pretty understandable.
And until we see it, producers will certainly keep the expectations sky high with TrustNordisk Managing Director Rikke Ennis proclaiming that once “Nymphomaniac” premieres it “will rock the entire cinema landscape.” Meanwhile, Jensen ups the ante even further, saying, “it is von Trier’s most ambitious film to date, probably his masterpiece…it brings a smile to my face watching lust and laughter go hand in hand with such a drama.”
All this said, the film is still expected to premiere somewhere in 2013, but you can scratch Cannes. Venice and TIFF — start working those phones….
