MONTREAL – Laurence Anyways, the forthcoming film from Montreal director Xavier Dolan, has been selected to take part in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival set to run May 16-27, 2012.

Un Certain Regard runs parallel to the main competition for the Palme d’Or, the top prize at Cannes, and is intended to showcase work by young and innovative directors. Actor Tim Roth will head this year’s Un Certain Regard jury.

Dolan is no stranger to success at Cannes. In 2009, J’ai tué ma mère – his first feature film, which he wrote, directed and co-starred in with Anne Dorval – won three prizes at the Director’s Fortnight, the independent film program at the festival.

In 2010, his second film, Les Amours imaginaires, also premiered at Cannes as part of Un Certain Regard.

Laurence Anyways is set in 1989, and is about a man who decides on his 30th birthday that he wants to become a woman.

The film stars Nathalie Baye, Melvil Poupaud and Dolan regular Monia Chokri, and is scheduled for release in May.

Among the films joining Laurence Anyways as part of this year’s Un Certain Regard is Antiviral, the first feature by Brandon Cronenberg, son of acclaimed Canadian director David Cronenberg.

At the Cannes festival’s main event, movies starring Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman will premiere and works by U.S. director Wes Anderson and David Cronenberg will be among 22 films vying for the coveted “Palme d’Or”, the top prize at the glitzy cinema showcase which can significantly boost a picture’s box office and awards potential.

Famous director/father David-Cronenberg with son Brandon-Cronenberg on his heel

Officials will be hoping that the blend of Hollywood star power and auteurs from around the globe will help the festival recover from last year’s controversy when Danish director Lars Von Trier was expelled for making Nazi jokes during a press conference.

“Killing Me Softly,” from New Zealand-born director Andrew Dominik, and co-starring “The Sopranos” James Gandolfini, sees Pitt investigating a heist during a mob-protected poker game.

Anderson’s 1960s drama “Moonrise Kingdom,” starring Ed Norton and Bill Murray, is set to kick off the May 16-27 festival, while Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” starring “Twilight” hearthrob Robert Pattison, is also in the main running.

And Twilight fans will also be keen to get their teeth into “On the Road,” the adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel from Brazilian director Walter Salles. Its cast includes Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart as well as Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst.

Contenders from host country France include “Vous N’Avez Encore Rien Vu,” from veteran European festival favorite Alain Resnais, 89, and Jacques Audiard’s “De Rouille et D’Os” (“Rust and Bone”) starring Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard.

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, a former Palme d’Or winner, is also competing with his French film “Amour” starring Isabelle Huppert.

At a press conference held in the grand salon of a Paris hotel flanked by this year’s festival poster of Marilyn Monroe, organizers saluted great filmmakers from around the world.

This is a partial Article from The Montreal Gazette…

Continue reading at this link. http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Xavier+Dolan+heading+back+Cannes+film+festival/6484114/story.html

The Cannes Film Festival, whose 65th edition plays from May 16 to 27, has immortalized Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe in an official poster.

Happy 65 Cannes - your one and only Marilyn Monroe.

The black and white picture shows Monroe in an intimate moment, seductively blowing a kiss.  The image conveys an exhilarating flash of myth meeting reality.

Monroe was just 36 when she was found dead in bed. Officially, she had overdosed herself with sleeping pills, but 50 years after this tragic end in 1962, nobody is sure whether it was an accident or a suicide or a murder.

But Marilyn Monroe remains after all these decades as sexily captivating as she was on screen, the innocence of her pout (matched today only by Angelina Jolie’s), and  the allure of her frock flying in the breeze still a source of  titillation.

The festival says – She enchants us with this promising gesture: a seductively blown kiss. The Festival is a temple of glamour and Marilyn is its perfect incarnation. Their coming together symbolises the ideal of simplicity and elegance.

What do you think of the official Cannes Poster…lets us know

Nanni Moretti will be President of the Jury of the 65th Festival de Cannes to be held from May 16 to 27, 2012.

Italian Director Nanni Moretti

Accepting the invitation, the Italian actor and director said: “This is a real joy, an honour and a tremendous responsibility to preside over the jury of the most prestigious festival of cinematography in the world, a festival that is held in a country where film has always been treated with interest and respect.
As a director, I was always very moved when my films were presented at the Festival de Cannes. I also have very happy memories of my experience as a jury member during the fiftieth anniversary season, and of the attentiveness and passion that went into the jury’s viewing and discussion of all the films.
As a spectator, fortunately I still have the same curiosity that I had in my youth and so it is a great privilege for me to embark on this voyage into the world of contemporary international film.”

Nanni Moretti  has presented six films at the Festival de Cannes, including last year’s highly praised Habemus Papam(We Have a Pope).

To read more on Moretti’s films credits: www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/58800.html

(Variety October 22) Thierry Fremaux isn’t going anywhere. But if the man who has steered the Cannes Film Festival for the past decade were to step down tomorrow, at least two things are certain: He’d be going out on a high note, and he’d have plenty to keep him busy.

Festival Director - Fremaux

At 51, the Lyon native continues to head his hometown’s Institut Lumiere (alongside helmer Bertrand Tavernier), a film museum located in the birthplace of the cinema. In that capacity, he just wrapped a popular second edition of his Festival Lumiere, a cinephile buffet devoted to classics and retro-spectives — as well as an implicit retort to those who questioned his decision to stay in Lyon when he took the Cannes reins in 2001.

These days, few would dispute Fremaux’s ability to multitask. (He shows up for his sit-down with Variety on his Trek bicycle, and admits he often negotiates film deals by phone while riding through the streets of Lyon and Paris.) Similarly, few would dispute his talent for making unpopular choices that pay off down the line.

Since his first day as artistic director at the grande dame of international cinema events, Fremaux has been conscious of his place as a leading force in the ongoing evolution of film festivals as a species. He’s fulfilled that role by embracing new technologies while remaining an advocate for the bigscreen experience, welcoming genre fare as well as traditional art cinema and generally refusing to settle on any simple definition of a festival film.

Fremaux's Traditional Red Carpet Welcome.

As he prepares to set the table for Cannes’ 65th anniversary in 2012, he’s still basking in warm notices for his most recent selection — a program that seemed emblematic of his largely acclaimed, sometimes controversial tenure, while effectively realizing almost everything he set out to accomplish 10 years ago.

“In a way, last year was my first real year,” Fremaux tells Variety. “Over the last five years I’ve had more freedom, but last year I had the most, the best freedom I could have had.”

Largely absent was the tension between old and new that has occasionally dogged his selection: Here was a festival boasting career-highlight work from heavyweight auteurs like Aki Kaurismaki and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, programmed alongside down-and-dirty genre fare like Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” Here, too, was a festival reasserting its ability to command media attention like no other, serving up its juiciest, ugliest scandale in years courtesy of Lars von Trier.

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Article written by Justin Chang

The golden ticket "Cannes Closing Ceremony"

If someone were to ask me what experience or knowledge I garnered from this year’s festival de Cannes based purely on the films I saw…my answer would be to choose wisely. I saw 15 films perhaps a record for me considering that I had two or three meetings a day while networking at several receptions for the first 6 days of the festival. Looking back at some of the images it would be best to summarize by saying life can be very difficult and the choices we make can ultimately affect a greater community that we share. I saw this particular theme played out in films like – We Need To Talk About Kevin – The Boy with The Bike, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia & Drive.

We Need To Talk about Kevin. Eva (Tilda Swinton) puts her ambitions and career aside to give birth to Kevin. The relationship between mother and son is difficult from the very first years. When Kevin is 15, he does something irrational and unforgiveable in the eyes of the entire community. Eva grapples with her own feelings of grief and responsibility. Did she ever love her son? And how much of what Kevin did was her fault? Based on the Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction.
 

The Boy with Bike- Le Gamin au Vélo -Le gamin au véloexplores familiar territory, with a young boy, Cyril (Thomas Doret) who’s abandoned by his father and left in the responsibility of unqualified childcare provider Samantha (Cécile De France).

 Tied with  Once Upon A Time in Anatolia for Grand Prix.

 Once Upon A Time in Anatolia – A group of men are driving through the country, looking for a corpse after the murderer has confessed the crime. They can’t find the body and while searching, they engage in what appears to be random chatter. Chatter that gets to heart of many stories sectioned off by brilliantly written characters by dir Nuri  Cyelan – CSI in Anatolia/Turkey.

 Tied with Le Gamin au Vélo for Grand Prix

Drive – The film stars Ryan Gosling as an emotionless wheelman who lives to drive, movie stunts by day and he commits robberies by night. He makes a rare stab at human connection with his fetching neighbor Carey Mulligan and her son.

Choices – we struggle with them every day from the simple ones like what to wear to most difficult…should I leave this job, does he/she love me enough for me to stay with them. Weighing each choice is a science – give too little thoughts and you may not like the results. Characters in the films mentioned above make some choices that were ultimately shocking and it evidently tested their inner strength. However, this particular theme is far from what I’ve experienced in Cannes in the last couple of years.  For example In 2009 I felt that I could not watch any more sex/nudity and perversion and in 2010 I felt I wasn’t sure what I was watching until the film Biutiful was screened. If you haven’t seen it I recommend that you get the DVD. It’s worth the watch.

Actor Kristen Dunst after the screening of Melanchioila

So why the change – when did our filmmakers began this philosophical journey by showing us our action upon the world?  I would go as far and say that some of the Auteurs were taking a closer look at themselves and the world we live in. The daily images that we tend to see and read have become clear in its message – the world we live in is evil. So evil in fact that there was a rapture on its way while I sat in a theatre unaware.  Well we all know that it didn’t happen – but from the insidious headlines on the evening news for days leading up to May 21…one would think it was the end.  There was no talk of the rapture in Cannes – we were we oblivious – only business as usual. But what is this fascination that we have with our soul and its redemption? Can it be as simple as Kristen Dunst explained in Lars Von Trier’s film Melanchioila. Her character is quoted as saying ‘we are evil and we are alone, I know this to be true” as the world comes to its ultimate demise at the end of the film. Thankfully the audience showed Lars some love for his artistic ability but when he begins to speak - someone please mute his microphone. But even still what was said is in reference to the world and the evil that we barely survived WWII.  So what about some of the good things in this world – who’s filming this and who’s telling those stories or are we buying into the coined phrase – its not hard hitting enough for regular viewers.

Straight after seeing the film Melcanchiolia I met a young lady Maria – only 17 yrs old but she had the foresight, knowledge and passion of someone much older. We met in a bar – across from the Cannes train station. She wasn’t drinking any alcohol. She was there to participle in the Karaoke night held by Creative Minds (Film Market Access’ partner with Creative Minds for the Toronto Program). Her passion was infectious and her ideas where beyond her scope but I wondered does this means that she cannot accomplish some or even a little of what she speaks of – hopefully setting the world on a better path. She started her own organization. She presented me with a card. The organization helps youths in under privilege communities to gain access to mentorship and better education.  She also visits colleges to speak to girls about taking pride in themselves by rejecting terms such as bitches and hoes, So what she doing in Cannes? She would be best suited for a humanitarian conference I figured. But she explains to me that she love documenting and the idea to make documentaries also narratives on the core values that she has is an asset. She continues to say that each film will teach and could go further than her community. I thought this was very admirable and I wonder if she was inspired in America and what influences these films at Cannes had presented her. The mirror was held up to our faces at many screenings. Were we all looking? Did we like what we see? Sometime we don’t want to see as our own reflection but what should we do about it?

I can’t help to think that this years’ Cannes I was quickly reminded that we probable are living in an evil society although thankfully we hold on to the hope that we can do better and we will try to do better. However, there is always that something that distracts us and that’s clearly the choices we make to help ourselves, family and friends. We are fallible and that’s what makes for a great story interpreted by great autuers who hope that they can continue to entertained and educated us at the same time…

Merci Cannes 2011… Rendez-vous l’année prochaine

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