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Cavalier vies with fresh talents in Directors’ Fortnight

New and established names provide an eclectic mix in Cannes

by Richard Mowe

Ensemble cast for Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight

With an excitingly eclectic selection of world cinema featuring both new and established names, the 58th edition of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight provides a treasure trove of 19 feature films and nine shorts, representing 19 countries among them those that feature rarely on the festival circuit such as Nigeria, Sudan, Guatemala, Venezuela and Cyprus.

Julien Rejl, the Fortnight’s director, took particular pleasure in announcing the premiere of a new documentary film by 94-year-old Alain Cavalier, Thanks For Coming, which ties in to the history of the event as he was one of the pioneer directors along with the likes of Werner Herzog in the early days. “We are proud to present the final instalment of his filmed diary,” trumpeted Rejl as he set out his stall in Paris today.

Alain Cavalier … Directors’ Fortnight pioneer Photo: Françoise Whidoff/UniFrance

The Fortnight, under the auspices of France’s Directors’ Guild, will open with Butterfly Jam, from Russian director Kantemir Balagov, about a father and a son relationship told with both brutality and tenderness, and tracing the difficult journey into manhood. After the critically acclaimed Tesnota and Beanpole, this is the first English-language feature by Balagov and features Barry Keoghan and Riley Keough.

The closing choice is a new film by the super-prolific Quentin Dupieux Vertigo (Le Vertige), described as “a hilarious comedy” filmed in 3D motion capture animation. Asked to describe it the normally loquacious Rejl was only able to muster the description “unclassifiable”. Dupieux also will feature in the official selection's Midnight Screenings announced last week by Thierry Frémaux with his English-language debut Full Phil.

In between there is plenty to quicken the pulses of cinephiles who have the opportunity to vote for their winners in the People’s Awards. The selection is strong on animation and documentary with Once Upon A Time In Harlem (premiered at Sundance) about a gathering in 1972 in Duke Ellington’s New York home directed by William and David Greaves. Alongside is another documentary from Maxence Voiseux with Gabin, about a rebellious teen in rural France.

On the animation front Sébastien Laudenbach, who co-directed Chicken For Linda!, will premiere Viva Carmen (Carmen, L’Oiseau Rebelle) set among a gang of street kids in Seville who seek to protect a free-spirited young woman while Japanese film-maker Kohei Kadowaki makes his debut with We Are Aliens about two friends over the course of more than three decades.

The UK’s Clio Barnard also follows childhood friends now in their thirties in I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. The BAFTA-nominated writer/director behind acclaimed British indie films such as The Selfish Giant, The Arbor and Ali & Ava, has gathered a buzzy ensemble cast for a film based on the novel of the same name by Keiran Goddard. The cast includes Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew.

There are big names aplenty in Reed Van Dyk’s first feature, Atonement, with Kenneth Branagh, Hiam Abbas and Boyd Holbrook. It is based on a 2012 New Yorker article about a Marine who seeks to reconcile with the survivors of an Iraqi family victimised by his unit years earlier. Rejl said: “It is not just an action film set 20 years ago but embraces the political context of today.”

Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso depicts the way his country has shifted in last two decades in Double Freedom Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight

Swiss-Italian director Sarah Arnold offers Too Many Beasts (L’Espece Explosive), set in the French countryside, where wild boars ravage crops and spark an open war between farmers and members of a gentlemen’s hunting club, who feed the game between hunts. The cast includes Alexis Manenti, Ella Rumpf and Vincent Dedienne. Arnold has previously made several eye-catching short films, such as Parades, which premiered in competition at Locarno and in Clermont-Ferrand.

Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso in Double Freedom depicts the way his country has shifted in last two decades by revisiting the film character we first visited back in 2001’s La libertad. Misael (Misael Saavedra) 25 years on continues to live alone, wielding his axe to fell trees deep in the forest, far from the presence of others. His quiet freedom is disrupted when he’s forced to care for his older sister, and the familiar rhythm of his days in the wilderness begins to unravel …

Another eye-catcher in the throng is Radu Jude’s latest project, Diary Of A Chambermaid, about a young Romanian woman working for a French family who joins an amateur theatre company for an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s The Diary Of A Chambermaid (published in 1900). The novel has already been transposed to the screen four times, notably by Jean Renoir in 1946 and by Luis Buñuel in 1964. Jude’s cast features Ana Dumitrescu, Vincent Macaigne and Mélanie Thierry.

From Nigeria directorial double act Arie and Chuko Esiri give a modern-day setting to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway with a Lagos setting and a cast embracing Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo, India Amarteifio, Ayo Edebiri and Toheeb Jimoh. Venezuela is represented by Jorge Thielen Armand’s Death Has No Master, a thriller with Asia Argento caught up in complications over the sale of her father’s house.

Rejl claims to be particularly pleased about the wide-ranging compass of the selection which still finds room for “directors whose artistic voices are still taking shape.”

The full line-up is below:

• Opening Film: Butterfly Jam by Kantemir Balagov

• 9 Temples to Heaven by Sompot Chidgasornpongse - first feature

• Atonement by Reed Van Dyk - first feature

• Viva Carmen by Sébastien Laudenbach - animation

• Clarissa by Arie Esiri & Chuko Esiri

• Death Has No Master (La muerte no tiene dueño) by Jorge Thielen Armand

• Dora by July Jung

• Double Freedom (La libertad doble) by Lisandro Alonso

• Too Many Beasts by Sarah Arnold - first feature

• Gabin by Maxence Voiseux - first documentary feature

• I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning by Clio Barnard