A few days ago the Jury for the 5th edition of the Queer Palm at Cannes was announced with the following members.
President: Bruce LaBruce, director, Canada
Ana Margarita Albelo, director, Cuba and USA
Joao Ferreira, festival programer, Portugal
Charlotte Lipinska, film critic, France
Ricky Mastro, director, Brasil
To check info on each of the jurors go here, info available only in French up-to-today.
As every year there are nine (9) films in the selection and six (6) are first feature films; 10 filmmakers (5 female and 5 male) and two (2) films are documentaries. It is a very French selection this year, which I find quite strange as usually selection includes more films from other countries.
Just in case you do not recall, L'ACID is the Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion, a film directors association that promotes diffusion of independent films in movie theaters and encourages debates between authors and audience for the last 22 years.
Today Edouard Waintrop, Artistic Director, announced the Directors' Fortnight selection with 19 films that includes the most awaited film -by me- Bande de filles by Céline Sciamma but also films by Dumont, Boorman and du Welz. There are 12 films produced or co-produced by Europe and more than half are from France.
Interesting is to find that in the selection there is a film by one of my favorite actress, Ronit Elkabetz, who is directing along with her brother. Also there is a film with great young actress Adèle Haenel plus is a good surprise to find a film by Diego Lerman.
A few minutes ago organizers release the usual video with Charles Tesson, Semaine Artistic Director, announcing this year selection with films that also as usual, seem strange/weird, which I think is absolutely Great! Alright admit that I do not like horror films and there are too many horror films in the competition, still very curious about the Danish film that was in the Berlinale and now in Cannes! That's quite unusual for a film.
As always there are seven (7) films in the Selection of 1st or 2nd films.
Have to share that I really enjoy Thierry Fremaux humor and well, his work that is all about the movies! Press conference was amusing to say the least while learning the films in the competition was emotional when many of my wish list films made the selection; still, there were several pleasant surprises. Perhaps is only me but I feel there are too many American films and not enough French films (lol).
Yes there are some great films that are not in the selection and already there are a few controversies but let's enjoy today the selection, what organizers chose for this edition afterwards maybe will share the not so pleasant news.
While the Official Selection of feature films for the 2014 festival edition will be revealed tomorrow, the list of short films in both sections is unveiled one day in advance. I'm doing this post for info purposes only as of tomorrow will publish in one post all films in the Official Selection.
Short Films Competition
This year the Selection Committee received 3, 450 short films from 128 countries and for the first time an Azeri and a Georgian film will take part in the competition.
Nine films will compete in 2014 for the Short Film Palm d'Or, to be awarded by Abbas Kiarostami, President of the Jury, at the Awards Ceremony of the 67th Festival de Cannes on Saturday, May 24th.
I was waiting for fest organizers to unveil poster to share all the fest available news before next Thursday when the Official Selection will be announced but poster was so stunning that gave a post just to talk about it. So here are the fest news up to today.
Main Selection
This year the festival jury has a woman as president and is none other than Jane Campion that has a long history with the festival, starting by being the ONLY female director to have won the Palme d'Or for The Piano in 1993, being the unique double of also wining the Short Film Palme d'Or for Peel in 1986, to last year winning the Carrosse d'Or given by La Société des réalisateurs de films and was The Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury President. Her Cannes story continues with having her first feature film, Sweetie, screened in Competion as well as her film Bright Star and being part of great collective adventure of To Each His Own Cinema.
Thierry Frémaux says: “We are immensely proud that Jane Campion has accepted our invitation. Following on from Michèle Morgan, Jeanne Moreau, Françoise Sagan, Isabelle Adjani, Liv Ullmann and Isabelle Huppert in 2009, she is the latest distinguished name to grace a prestigious roster of female Presidents. Coming from a country and indeed a continent where film is a rare but powerful phenomenon, she is one of those directors who perfectly embody the idea that you can make films as an artist and yet still appeal to a worldwide public. And we are confident that her exacting approach will be mirrored by her Jury.”
There are many news about the festival but the most important is that in two days, next Thursday, the selection will be announced and the Cannes yearly event will start full force as many, including me, are speculating that this year the selection will have "great" movies.
Today the festival poster was released to my great pleasure as yes I love iconic Marcello Mastroianni and most of all one of my most admired movies is none other than 8 1/2 by master filmmaker Federico Fellini. The poster is a beauty to my eyes that shows us Marcello in one of his particular looks to camera in Fellini's 8 1/2.
What follows is the story of how the poster came to life.
Hervé Chigioni and his graphic designer Gilles Frappier have based the poster design for the 67th Festival de Cannes on a photogram taken from Federico Fellini’s 8½, which was presented in the Official Selection in 1963.
In Marcello Mastroianni and Federico Fellini, we celebrate a cinema that is free and open to the world, acknowledging once again the artistic importance of Italian and European cinema through one of its most stellar figures.
Recently the Deutsche Filmakademie (German Film Academy) announced the nominees for the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Awards) -better known as Lolas- and the visually stunning western Das finstere Tal (The Dark Valley) by Andreas Prochaska plus starring none other than Sam Riley is this year's front-runner with nine nominations, including one for best picture.
With six nominations another period drama Die andere Heimat - Chronik einer Sehnsucht (Heimat: Home from Home – Chronicle of a Vision), a black and white film directed by Edgar Reitz. The surprise is to find nominated for best picture the German box office #1 film, the comedy by Bora Dagtekin; seems the academy is warming to commercial movies. Sigh.
Update with the 2014 Livre of Projects at post bottom. Enjoy!
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4/2/14
Created in 1998 and devoted to the search for new talent, the Cinéfondation selects fifteen to twenty short and medium-length films each year from film schools all over the world. The Cinéfondation selection forms part of the Official Selection and the selected films are presented to the Cinéfondation and Shorts Jury which awards a prize to the best three at an official ceremony.
As we know the Cinéfondation and Shorts Jury President is none other than Abbas Kiarostami supported by directors Noémie Lvovsky (France), Daniela Thomas (Brazil), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad), and Joachim Trier(Norway). I expect the selection to be announced as part of the official selection.
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