Cannes 2014: Media Guide
Unless you’ve managed to live without the internet since April 16th, the question “How do you feel about the Cannes lineup this year?” must have surfed its way to – or from- you by now. Yes, cinephiles around the world have been slowly digesting Thierry Fremaux’s announcement from April 17th, and Way Too Indie is no exception. As this years man in the field, my excitement is only contained by perpetual bouts of anxiousness as I mentally prepare for the invasion my body and mind will succumb to in three weeks time. 19 films competing for the main prize, 19 films competing in the smaller, edgier, and often times more revelatory Un Certain Regard section, 2 films in the Out Of Competition slot, 3 Midnight Screenings, and 5 Special Screenings (Cannes slang for Documentary.)
That’s 48 movies, and with Fremaux confirming that two or three more will be added in the coming weeks, that’ll make just about 50 or so films in the Official Selection. That’s not even including the Cannes affiliated Director’s Fortnight and Critic’s Week! What I would give to be able to see them all! But that’s not going to be possible, so once every film gets announced, and the schedules are out, I’ll have a better idea of what I’ll be able to catch.
In the meantime, you’d do well to bookmark this page because for the coming weeks this is going to be a PR mecca for everything Cannes related. We will have trailers, images, interview links and anything else we grab our hands on. You’re encouraged to use the comments section and let us know if we’ve missed anything!
IN COMPETITION
Clouds Of Sils Maria
Director Olivier Assayas
Saint Laurent
Director Bertrand Bonello
Winter Sleep
Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Maps To The Stars
Director David Cronenberg
Complex look at Hollywood and what it reveals about Western culture.
Two Days, One Night
Directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
The film follows Sandra, a young woman assisted by her husband, who has only one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job.
Mommy
Director Xavier Dolan
A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.
The Captive
Director Atom Egoyan
A father tries to track down his kidnapped daughter.
Goodbye To Language
Director Jean-Luc Godard
The Search
Director Michel Hazanavicius
A woman who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya.
The Homesman
Director Tommy Lee Jones
A claim jumper and a pioneer woman team up to escort three insane women from Nebraska to Iowa.
Still The Water
Director Naomi Kawase
Mr. Turner
Director Mike Leigh
A look at the life of British artist J.M.W Turner.
Jimmy’s Hall
Director Ken Loach
Political activist Jimmy Gralton is deported from Ireland during the country’s ‘Red Scare’ of the 1930s.
Foxcatcher
Director Bennett Miller
The story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz and how paranoid schizophrenic John duPont killed his brother, Olympic Champion Dave Schultz.
Le Meraviglie
Director Alice Rohrwacher
Timbuktu
Director Abderrahmane Sissako
Wild Tales
Director Damian Szifronr
Leviathan
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Party Girl
Director Marie Amachoukeli
An aging nightclub hostess decides to settle down and get married.
Jauja
Director Lisandro Alonso
A father and daughter journey from Denmark to an unknown desert that exists in a realm beyond the confines of civilization.
poster via IndieWire
Le Chambre Bleue
Director Mathieu Almaric
Incompresa
Director Asia Argento
Titli
Director Kanu Behl
A young man in Delhi tries to break free from his controlling brothers.
Eleanor Rigby
Director Ned Benson
A New York couple’s relationship.
Bird People
Director Pascale Ferran
An American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew.
Lost River
Director Ryan Gosling
A single mother is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town.
Amour Fou
Director Jessica Hausner
Charlie’s Country
Director Rolf De Heer
Snow in Paradise
Director Andrew Hulme
Hard-hitting character study that’s based on the real story of one man’s journey to control his violence through religion. It takes us from the blood soaked East End of London to the world of the Islamic whirling dervishes.
A Girl At My Door
Director July Jung
Xenia
Director Panos Koutras
Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus cross the entire country in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away.
Run
Director Philippe Lacote
Run escapes… He just killed the Prime Minister of his country. In order to do so, he had to act as if he was a crazy man, wandering through the city. His life comes back by flashes; his childhood with Tourou when his dream was to become a rain miracle-worker, his adventures with Gladys the eater, and his past as a young member of militia, in the heart of the politic and military conflict in Ivory Coast. All those lives, Run didn’t choose them. Everytime, he felt in by running from another life. That’s the reason why his name’s Run.
Turist
Director Ruben Ostlund
Hermosa Juventud
Director Jaime Rosales
Fantasia
Director Chao Wang
The Salt Of The Earth
Directors Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Away From His Absence
Director Keren Yedaya
The film plans to follow the incestuous relationship between a 60-year-old man and his 22-year-old daughter who live together in a small apartment in Israel. The film will deal with difficult moral and political issues. It faces questions such as how and why an evolving, adult woman is still having sex with her father — a man whom, despite raping her at an early age, she claims to be in love with.
White God
Director Kornel Mundruczo
OUT OF COMPETITION
Grace Of Monaco
Director Olivier Dahan
The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly’s crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and France’s Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.
How To Train Your Dragon 2
Director Dean DeBlois
It’s been five years since Hiccup and Toothless successfully united dragons and vikings on the island of Berk. While Astrid, Snotlout and the rest of the gang are challenging each other to dragon races (the island’s new favorite contact sport), the now inseparable pair journey through the skies, charting unmapped territories and exploring new worlds. When one of their adventures leads to the discovery of a secret ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace. Now, Hiccup and Toothless must unite to stand up for what they believe while recognizing that only together do they have the power to change the future of both men and dragons.
Coming Home
Director Zhang Yimou
A Chinese man is forced into marriage and flees to America, but when he returns home, he is sent to a labor camp.
In The Name Of My Daughter
Director André Téchiné
The real life story behind the disappearance of Agnes Les Roux
MIDNIGHTERS
The Rover
Director David Michôd
A loner tracks the gang who stole his car from a desolate town in the Australian outback with the forced assistance of a wounded guy left behind in the wake of the theft.
The Salvation
Director Kristian Levring
In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family’s murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone.
The Target
Director Chang
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Maidan
Director Sergei Loznitsa
A look at the 2013 and 2014 civil unrest in the Ukrainian capital’s central square.
Red Army
Director Gabe Polsky
Following the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, RED ARMY tells the story of the nation’s famed Red Army hockey team through the eyes of its captain Slava Fetisov. Whether he was pitted against enemies in the political arena or on the ice, Fetisov’s story provides a rare glimpse behind the Iron Curtain of the 1970s and ’80s by mirroring the social and political forces at work in the world around him. While helping pave the way for his nation to cross over into the next century, this one man demonstrated how sports could not only be an avenue for creative expression in a world determined to suppress it, but also be something so inextricably intertwined with a nation’s cultural and political identity.
Bridges of Sarajevo
Director Aida Begic, Leonardo di Costanzo & more
The Bridges of Sarajevo is a cinematic contribution to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. The film is a collaboration of well known European directors, who all contribute one short to the feature film.
Cartoonists, Foot Soldiers of Democracy
Director Stéphanie Valloatto
The Ardor
Director Pablo Fendrik
An Argentinian western revenge tale starring juror Gael Garcia Bernal.
Geronimo
Director Tony Gatlif
A story about social conflict between Turks and gypsies as seen through the eyes of a teacher.
The Owners
Director Adlikahn Yerzhanov
Two brothers struggling to hold on to their ancestral home while their sister and mother lose their breath and mind, respectively.