While some may have expected Cannes faves Jaco Van Dormael and Takashi Miike to wind up in the Official Selection, those auteurs instead lead the 47th Directors’ Fortnight lineup, along with American indies “Green Room,” starring Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart, the world premiere of Jeremy Saulnier’s punk rock follow-up to Fortnight entry “Blue Ruin,’ and two Sundance titles, Chloe Zhao’s Native American drama “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and the May 24 Fortnight closer, Rick Famuyiwa’s L.A. comedy “Dope.”
After leaking that Competition two also-rans would play in the Quinzaine rather than accept slots in Un Certain Regard–Miguel Gomes’s three part, six-hour portrait of contemporary Portugal, “Arabian Nights” (The Match Factory) and French Arnaud Desplechin’s “My Golden Years” starring Mathieu Amalric– on Tuesday artistic director Edouard Waintrop laid out the full lineup of 19 films (out of a record 1,623 submissions).
The opener on May 14 will be French auteur Philippe Garrel’s 25th feature, contemporary Paris showbiz drama “In the Shadow of Women” (Wild Bunch), starring Clotilde Courau, Stanislas Merhar and Lena Paugam.
READ MORE: Cannes Critics’ Week Lineup Includes Louis Garrel’s Debut, SXSW Winner “Krisha”
The program includes three women filmmakers this year: Zhao, Turkish rookie Deniz Gamze Erguven’s village drama “Mustang,” and Chilean Marcia Tambutti’s “Allende, mi abuelo Allende.” a documentary about her grandfather Salvador Allende.
The Fortnight makes up for a lack of Latin American titles in the festival with Amazon adventure “Embrace of the Serpent,” Colombian rising auteur Ciro Guerra’s return to Cannes after 2009’s “The Wind Journeys” played Un Certain Regard. Comedies in the lineup include Belgian Van Dormael’s religious satire “The Brand New Testament” (La Pacte) his follow-up to “Mr. Nobody,” starring Benoit Poelvoorde as God, Yolande Moreau and Catherine Deneuve, and Japanese Takashi Miike’s Special Screenng “Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld.”
READ MORE: Cannes Pushes Arnaud Desplechin’s “My Golden Years” to the Directors’ Fortnight
Marking another filmmaker working in English is Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s “A Perfect Day” stars Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins and Olga Kurylenko. French screenwriter-turned-director Thomas Bidegain’s “The Cowboys” (Pathe) stars Francois Damiens and Finnegan Oldfield as a father who hires a headhunter (John C. Reilly) to find his missing daughter. Bidegain won the Cesar for Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet” and also wrote “Rust and Bone.”
The French Directors Association will present its Carrosse d’Or to China’s Jia Zhangke, whose “Mountains May Depart” is in the Main Competition. Other awards include the first-time filmmakers’ Camera d’Or as well as the FIPRESCI given by international critics, the Art Cinema Award, SACD Prize and Europa Cinemas Label and the illy Prize. (Hat Tip: Variety.)
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