It’s about to become all about the 2013 Cannes Film Festival around these parts as one week from now I will be in the air, flying somewhere over the middle of the country, on my way to New York before heading to Nice and it looks like one of the first films, if not the first film, I’ll be seeing is Ari Folman‘s The Congress, his long-awaited follow-up to his Oscar nominated film Waltz with Bashir.
The Congress serves as the opening night film for the Directors’ Fortnight selection and will screen for press the morning of May 16. Of course, that could very well conflict with a morning screening of a competition title, but by the looks of it I will have several opportunities to give it a look.
Today I received three brand new stills from the film, which stars Robin Wright as herself in a loose adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s “The Futurological Congress.” Her co-stars include Kodi Smit-McPhee, Danny Huston, Paul Giamatti and Harvey Keitel. Here’s the synopsis:
Robin Wright, playing the role of herself, gets an offer from a major studio to sell her cinematic identity: she’ll be numerically scanned and sampled so that her alias can be used with no restrictions in all kinds of Hollywood films – even the most commercial ones that she previously refused. In exchange she receives loads of money, but more importantly, the studio agrees to keep her digitalized character forever young – for all eternity – in all of their films. The contract is valid for 20 years.
The Congress follows Robin as she makes her comeback after the contract expires, straight into the world of future fantasy cinema.
Check out the photos below and stay tuned for a lot more from the festival, which begins on May 15 and I’ll be in town from the 14-25, covering as many films as I possibly can. For all of my coverage of the festival click here.
