UPDATE: The full line-up is now available right here.
We are now less than 24 hours away from the official 2012 Cannes Film Festival line-up announcement and I have to admit, my excitement for what may come is hitting overload. As much as the Toronto Film Festival has come to be the place where several films begin their Oscar run, there simply is nothing better than the international cinematic prestige of attending the Cannes Film Festival each year and this will mark my third year attending.
With that in mind, late last night I added an additional nine films to the RopeofSilicon database that have the potential of being named during tomorrow’s (April 19) announcement, which should come sometime around 2 or 3 AM PST. After doing so I felt it wouldn’t hurt to take one last look at what films have the strongest chance of showing up at the festival this year.
In my first two groups I have 18 total films I am quite confident will make the list, followed by six more I’m hesitant to go all in on and a final four I really don’t see having much of a chance at all.
The final Cannes line-up will be much larger than what I present here. This is just a small snippet of what will be presented, which means there are still plenty of surprises in store.
Most Likely Entries
We already know Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom will be opening the festival, but what else is extremely likely to make an appearance? Well, I have to begin with Jacques Audiard‘s Rust & Bone. While the film does hit French cinemas on May 17 (one day after the festival begins), I still find it highly likely. After all, last year The Conquest played the festival the exact same day it opened in cinemas, so I don’t think that matters much at all.
Another film hitting theaters close to the Festival’s May 16 opening day is David Cronenberg‘s Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson in the adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel with a screenplay penned by Cronenberg himself. The pic has long been considered a likely entrant and I don’t see any reason not to expect it. The last Cronenberg film to play Cannes was A History of Violence in 2005, and I’d say it’s about time he returned.
Speaking of Cronenberg, I have a hunch his son, Brandon Cronenberg, will be enjoying some time in the Cote d’Azur this May with his sci-fi thriller Antiviral. Written and directed by Brandon, the film stars Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon and Malcolm McDowell in a twisted story centered on an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans, who becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans after becoming infected himself with one of the viruses.
Walter Salles‘s On the Road is also a likely contender with it currently being without a distributor in several territories and the continued marketing taking place over at the film’s Facebook page. Along with the film’s leads, which include Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart, it would also mark the return of last year’s Best Actress winner Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia). I think you can pretty much count on it being there.
After a bootlegged trailer for Abbas Kiarostami‘s new film Like Someone in Love recently hit the Internet it makes pretty good sense to believe it will be finding its place on the Croisette, especially considering it is described as a thematic continuation of Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, which played the fest in 2010 and won Juliette Binoche a Best Actress award.
Unlike Certified Copy‘s Tuscan setting, Like Someone in Love takes place in Japan and tells the story of a young woman (Rin Takanashi) who finances her studies through prostitution and her relationship with a brilliant, elderly academic (Tadashi Okuno) who is also one of her clients.
By the way, speaking of Binoche, I’ve heard two different stories concerning Bruno Dumont‘s has finished Camille Claudel (La Creatrice) starring Binoche and Jean Luc Vincent and the story of the French sculptor and graphic artist. One person says it’s finished and their pushing it to get in and the other says Dumont is still shooting. Personally, I would say don’t count on it, but I felt it made more sense mentioning it now rather than later with the Binoche tie-in.
Next we move to Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan, whose previous two films — I Killed My Mother and Heartbeats — both played the Cannes Film Festival and with the recently released, three-minute trailer for the film hitting the web (watch to the right), I think it is pretty safe to assume Laurence Anyways is going to make it three in a row.
One film I had on my wishlist, but wasn’t quite sure what was going on with it, was Michael Haneke‘s Love (Amour), but in a press release issued just yesterday it was announced Sony Pictures Classics had acquired the film for domestic distribution. Coincidental timing?
The film centers on Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), both of whom are in their eighties and cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter (Isabelle Huppert), who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family until one day, Anne has an attack and the couple’s bond of love is severely tested.
Haneke’s last film, The White Ribbon, played the Festival in 2009 and ended up winning the Palme d’Or before going on to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It was also one of three films that year — along with Inglourious Basterds and A Prophet — that determined I would never again miss a Cannes festival if I could help it. That said, I am both expecting and hoping Love is in this year’s field.
Affleck, Stone, McAdams, Kidman, McConaughey, Witherspoon and more are on page two. Click and continue…
