Cannes offers an ocean of films, with hundreds of screenings to choose from every day.
The festival programme and market screenings have been announced in recent weeks and we are busy puzzling with the team to make sure we see as much as possible. This means deciding who watches which films, and also factor in the other work we have during these days: meetings with sales agents, colleagues and potential partners, programmes from our colleagues, and so on.
But it is an attractive puzzle, of course, because there’s quite a lot to look forward to. A selection of the films we look forward to the most will soon yield a large list. In the Competition we will at least look at The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin) and Club Zero by Jessica Hausner, who previously made great eco sci-fi with Little Joe. Midnight is our natural environment, with the Indian film Kennedy by Anurag Kashyap (Gangs of Wasseypur, Ugly), Project Silence by Kim Tae-gon and – why not – Hypnotic by Robert Rodriguez.
There are many titles in the various side programs that are unknown quantities and that we hope to discover, such as the intriguing Tiger Stripes. But there are also several well-known names. Veteran Takeshi Kitano is there with Kubi, Amat Escalante (La región salvaje, Imagine 2017) with Perdidos en la noche and cult hero Bertand Mandico made Conann – a female version of … Conan the Barbarian!
New films by Michel Gondry and Wes Anderson will probably be in cinemas over summer, so we’ll see them at home. And perhaps Kore-Eda’s Monster lives up to its title. We’ll go and see, and let you know here!
Chris Oosterom
