Cannes: Un Certain Regard, FIPRESCI, Queer Palm, Semaine de la Critique, Acquisitions...

Some early prizes at the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival were given out today, in the Un Certain Regard sidebar (which was presided over by Claire Denis), as well as the FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) awards, the Grand Prix of the Semaine de la Critique, the Art Cinema Award and Short Film Prizes of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs... et plus.

Un Certain Regard Award: HaHaHa, d. Hong Sang-soo, South Korea
- Jury Prize: Octubre [October], d. Daniel Vega, Diego Vega, Peru/Venezuela/Spain
- Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress: Adela Sanchez, Eva Bianco, Victoria Raposo, Los labios [The Lips]

FIPRESCI Awards
- Competition: Tournée [On Tour], d. Mathieu Amalric, France
- Un Certain Regard: Pál Adrienn [Adrienn Pál], d. Ágnes Kocsis, Hungary/Austria/France/Netherlands
- Quinzaine des Réalisateurs: Todos vós sodes capitáns [You Are All Captains], d. Oliver Luxe, Spain/Morocco

Queer Palm: Kaboom, d. Gregg Araki, USA/France
Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique: Armadillo, d. Janus Metz, Denmark
Art Cinema Award (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs): Pieds nus sur les limaces [Lily Sometimes], d. Fabienne Berthaud, France
Prix SFR (short films, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs): Căutare [Quest], d. Ionuţ Piţurescu, Romania; Mary Last Seen, d. Sean Durkin, USA

As expected, IFC Films snatched up the most films this year. Araki's Kaboom, Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats [Les amours imaginaires], Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier [La princesse de Montpensier], Jorge Michel Grau's We Are What We Are [Somos lo que hay] and Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy [Copie conforme] have all been picked up by the studio since the start of the festival. Prior to that, they had already struck a deal for Olivier Assayas' Carlos, along with The Sundance Channel (they're owned by the same company); The Sundance Channel will air the 333-minute-long version later this year, followed by a theatrical release from IFC of a shorter, three-hour-long cut.

The other US distributor that typically returns from Cannes with several films added to their roster, Sony Pictures Classics, has been more conservative than usual in their purchases thusfar (possibly due to the reportedly weak line-up this year), taking only Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men [Des hommes et des dieux] and Mike Leigh's Another Year. They had already secured Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe, both playing out of competition. The only other US purchase at the festival so far came from Magnolia's genre arm, Magnet Releasing, who picked up Quentin Dupieux's horror/comedy Rubber. Rubber, which screened during the Semaine de la Critique, stars Roxane Mesquida and Stephen Spinella (Milk, Love! Valour! Compassion!). The official closing ceremony of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival will begin in just a few hours.

Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Semaine de la Critique, Cannes 2009

More films playing at the 62nd annual Festival International de Cannes were revealed today. The line-up of both the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, aka Directors' Fortnight, and La Semaine de la Critique, aka The International Critics' Week, have been announced. Contrary to early reports, Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro will make a showing at Cannes this year, opening the Quinzaine. Coppola's company American Zoetrope will roll the film out in US theatres in early June. Other notable films screening at the Quinzaine are the latest from Pedro Costa (Colossal Youth), a documentary entitled Ne change rien, translated as Don't Change Anything; a new film from Hong Sang-soo called Like You Know It All; Luc Moullet's La terre de la folie; Yuki & Nina, a co-directorial effort from Nobuhiro Suwa and French actor Hippolyte Girardot, who starred in Suwa's segment in Paris je t'aime; the latest film Le roi d'évasion from Alain Guiraudie, who will show up on my Decade List in the coming months; and a trio of American films that made their premieres at Sundance in January. I Love You Phillip Morris finds our new favorite trend of Hollywood actors going gay as Jim Carrey falls in love with cellmate Ewan McGregor. Amreeka, about an immigrant woman in Illinois starring Hiam Abbass (The Visitor, Lemon Tree, The Limits of Control) and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), also played at New Directors/New Films on 25 March; National Geographic Films will release it theatrically. And Lynn Shelton's acclaimed Humpday is the third; Magnolia is releasing it this summer. I'm not familiar with any of the directors screening at La Semaine de la Critique, but among the shorts is one directed by actor Grégoire Colin, the star of a number of Claire Denis' films, entitled Le Baie du renard, loosely The Bay of the Fox. The directorial debuts in the Quinzaine will compete for the Caméra d'Or, whose previous winners include Steve McQueen's Hunger, Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest, Tran Anh Hung's The Scent of Green Papaya, Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon, Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! and Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise.

As for reactions to the various line-ups this year, it seems strange to comment about a group of films no one's seen yet; however, it's hard not to get excited about all the new films from such established directors, particularly after such a disappointing showing at Berlin and Sundance earlier. Of course, some of these films will not meet their high expectations. Some of the unavoidable things I'm not looking forward to reading this year include the homophonous substitute of "Cannes" for "can," the American media coverage of Angelina Jolie at the premiere of Inglourious Basterds, talk about how the recession has effected the festival unless it's warranted by, say, Vanessa Paradis walking down the red carpet naked and complaints about the poor showing of American directors. I'll also direct you to Vadim Rizov's wonderful piece about the festival's history with their national filmmakers. I've posted the line-up of features for the Quinzaine below. You can find the shorts here, and the Semaine de la Critique here, both via Variety. Oh, and if you're looking for anyone to sponsor coverage of the film, my schedule for May is wide open.

Directors' Fortnight

La Pivellina - dir. Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel - Austria

The Alasness of Things [De helaasheid der dingen] - dir. Felix van Groeningen (Steve + Sky) - Belgium/Netherlands

Eastern Plays - dir. Kamen Kalev - Bulgaria/Sweden

Carcasses - dir. Denis Côté - Canada

J'ai tué ma mère - dir. Xavier Dolan - Canada

Polytechnique - dir. Denis Villeneuve - Canada

Navidad - dir. Sebastián Lelio - Chile

Oxhide II - dir. Liu Jiayin - China

La famille Wolberg - dir. Axelle Ropert - France/Belgium

La terre de la folie [Land of Madness] - dir. Luc Moullet (A Girl Is a Gun, Anatomy of a Relationship) - France

Le Roi d'évasion - dir. Alain Guiraudie (No Rest for the Brave) - France

Les beaux gosses - dir. Riad Sattouf - France - with Emmanuelle Devos, Valeria Golino, Irène Jacob, Noémie Lvovsky

Yuki & Nina - dir. Nobuhiro Suwa (Un couple parfait, H Story), Hippolyte Girardot - France/Japan - with Girardot

Ajami - dir. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani - Israel/Germany

Daniel & Ana - dir. Michel Franco - Mexico/Spain

Karaoke - dir. Christopher Chan Fui Chong - Malaysia

Ne change rien - dir. Pedro Costa - Portugal/France

Here - dir. Ho Tzy-nyen - Singapore/Canada

Like You Know It All - dir. Hong Sang-soo (Woman on the Beach, Night and Day) - South Korea

Amreeka - dir. Cherien Dabis - USA/Canada/Kuwait - with Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat

Go Get Some Rosemary - dir. Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie - USA/France

Humpday - dir. Lynn Shelton - USA - with Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard

I Love You Phillip Morris - dir. Glenn Ficarra, John Requa - USA - with Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro

Tetro - dir. Francis Ford Coppola - Argentina/Spain/Italy/USA - with Vincent Gallo, Maribel Verdú, Carmen Maura, Klaus Maria Brandauer

Finally, a US date for Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman

After topping last year's IndieWire list of the best undistributed films of 2008 (the list no longer seems to be online after IndieWire revamped their site; nevermind, I found it), Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza] has finally been picked up for US distribution by Strand Releasing. An 18 August date is set. In addition to The Headless Woman, the other titles Strand has lined up for the year include Downloading Nancy with Maria Bello and Jason Patric which premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, Born in '68 [Nés en 68] from directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (Côte d'Azur, The Adventures of Félix), Pablo Trapero's Lion's Den [Leonera] from last year's Cannes Film Festival and Max Färberböck's A Woman in Berlin which premiered at Toronto last fall.

Several other titles from IndieWire's Undistributed list have found homes in the US as well. Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero is at Lorber Films (which I believe is the new name for Koch Lorber) and Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day is at IFC, while Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums] makes its US premiere at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema and Albert Cerra's Birdsong [El cant dels ocells] screened in New York recently. You can check my review of The Headless Woman on my Best of 2008 post.

Coming (or Not Coming) in 2009: Part 3

Part three of my posts looking at a number of films that may show up at film festivals during 2009 will focus on the continent of Asia, as well as a pair from Australia/New Zealand. Previous posts have covered France and the rest of Europe, and earlier posts about the Berlinale mentioned the new film from Chen Kaige.

Blake Williams first gave me word of the new film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century). You can find more information here on the director, and his latest project Primitive: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives which is going into production shortly via this link. Thanks Blake.

The latest film from Johnnie To (Mad Detective, Election) will be a French/Hong Kong co-production and filmed in English, entitled Vengeance. Filming now, Vengeance stars Johnny Hallyday, Simon Yam and Sylvie Testud. Variety reports that this is not the planned remake of Le cercle rouge, however. It is slated to be released in France on 20 May.

Following Lust, Caution, Ang Lee returns to the US for Taking Woodstock, which is set to be released in the States in August. It will be the third teaming in a row for Lee with Focus Features. Taking Woodstock stars, among many others, Emile Hirsch, comedian Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber, Paul Dano, Kelli Garner, Imelda Staunton, Katherine Waterston, Eugene Levy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Dan Fogler.

Like Hou Hsiao-hsien before him, Tsai Ming-liang will make his next feature in France, entitled Visage [Face]. The film explores the myth of Salomé, the biblical figure who performed the Dance of the Seven Veils which resulted in the beheading of John the Bapist. The dream cast includes Laetitia Casta as Salomé, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Mathieu Amalric, Fanny Ardant, Nathalie Baye and frequent actor Lee Kang-sheng. No dates set, but check this link (thanks to Nimzo!) for more information.

Hong Sang-soo's latest You Don't Even Know is currently filming. I couldn't find much information about the film, but it does star Kim Tae-woo and Go Hyun-jung from Woman on the Beach as well as Ye Ji-won from Turning Gate.

Park Chan-wook's Thirst looks to be ready in time for Cannes. The film already has distribution in France (Wild Side), the UK (Palisades Tartan), South Korea (CJ Entertainment) and the US (Focus Features) and will hopefully be out by the end of the year, before the Old Boy remake hits theatres. Thirst stars Song Kang-ho (The Host), Shin Ha-kyun (No Mercy for the Rude), Mercedes Cabral (Serbis) and Eriq Ebouaney (35 rhums).

I Come with the Rain will be Tran Anh Hung's first film since The Vertical Ray of the Sun in 2000. Produced by France, I couldn't find any substantial release dates for the film, but it stars Josh Hartnett, Elias Koteas, Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), Simón Andreu and Takuya Kimura (2046).

No one seems to know what's going on with Wong Kar-wai's intended remake of The Lady from Shanghai after star Nicole Kidman dropped out. If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

The new film from director Mira Nair will be an American biopic of Amelia Earheart, with Hilary Swank as the doomed pilot. The film, called Amelia, will be released by Fox Searchlight in October. Amelia also stars Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Virginia Madsen and Joe Anderson.

John Woo's Red Cliff Part 2 was released in China on 8 January; the first installment was released last summer, though it doesn't look like any US distributor has picked up either. Red Cliff 2 stars Chang Chen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung.

Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme [Certified Copy] is currently in production and is set to star Juliette Binoche (she really does get to work with the world's best directors, doesn't she?). mk2 will release the film in France when it's completed.

The Duel will be the first American film from director Dover Koshashvili (Late Marriage). It looks to be finished filming, but I couldn't find anything further about the film.

Jane Campion will follow the terrible In the Cut with Bright Star, which examines the relationship between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Pathé should release the film by the end of the year in the UK. It stars Ben Wishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox.

The new film from John Hillcoat (The Proposition), called The Road, was bumped from last fall to sometime this year. The cast includes Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams and Molly Parker. The Road is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

As there always seems to be one, I forgot to mention the two new films from Fatih Akin (The Edge of Heaven) when doing my European post. Soul Kitchen is to be released in France on 11 November by Pyramide Distribution; the film stars Moritz Bleibtreu and Birol Ünel. The other film is a documentary entitled Garbage in the Garden of Eden.

IFC Films in 2009, including Assayas, Ozon, Garrel, Sang-soo, Arcand, Tarr

In a press release, IFC Films laid out a number of films they'll be presenting through their various platforms of release, which includes theatrical, Festival Direct Video-On-Demand and their DVD rental partnership with Blockbuster (which seems to have stopped their releases of DVDs elsewhere, which is extremely disappointing). I use Netflix, and my cable provider doesn't offer Festival Direct... so I'm sort of fucked when it comes to their releases, but I have to hand it to them for getting so many films out there. Their 2009 release schedule includes:

Angel - dir. François Ozon - with Sam Neill, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Fassbender
Frontier of the Dawn [La frontière de l'aube] - dir. Philippe Garrel - with Louis Garrel, Laura Smet
Summer Hours [L'heure d'été] - dir. Olivier Assayas - with Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche, Jérémie Renier
La belle personne - dir. Christophe Honoré - with Louis Garrel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Let It Rain [Parlez-moi de la pluie] - dir. Agnès Jaoui - with Agnès Jaoui
Days of Darkness [L'âge des ténèbres] - dir. Denys Arcand - with Diane Kruger, Rufus Wainwright, Emma de Caunes
Night and Day - dir. Hong Sang-soo
Disengagement [Désengagement] - dir. Amos Gitai - with Juliette Binoche, Jeanne Moreau
Dog Eat Dog [Perro come perro] - dir. Carlos Moreno
Everlasting Moments [Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick] - dir. Jan Troell
Fear Me Not [Den du frygter] - dir. Kristian Levring - with Ulrich Thomsen, Paprika Steen
I'm Going to Explode [Voy a explotar] - dir. Gerardo Naranjo - with Daniel Giménez Cacho
The Man from London [A Londoni férfi] - dir. Béla Tarr - with Tilda Swinton
The Necessities of Life [Ce qu'il fait pour vivre] - dir. Benoît Pilon
Paris - dir. Cédric Klapisch - with Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, François Cluzet, Albert Dupontel, Karin Viard
When a Man Comes Home [En Mand kommer hjem] - dir. Thomas Vinterberg
White Night Wedding [Brúðguminn] - dir. Baltasar Kormákur - with Hilmir Snær Guðnason
A Year Ago in Winter [Im Winter ein Jahr] - dir. Caroline Link
Alexander the Last - dir. Joe Swanberg - with Jess Weixler, Justin Rice, Jane Adams, Josh Hamilton
Zift - dir. Javor Gardev

There are more titles at the link above, and I've also heard from elsewhere that Jean-Claude Brisseau's À l'aventure and Antti-Jussi Annila's Sauna are on the roster for 2009. I could be wrong, as I thought both Paris and Disengagement belonged to Samuel Goldwyn and Sony Pictures Classics, respectively. Expect plenty more acquisitions throughout the year following 2009's big film festivals.