Perhaps even more important than actually screening your film at the Cannes Film Festival (which is a great honor and pretty damn important itself) is the badge given to filmmakers to add to marketing materials calling your feature an “Official Cannes Selection.” Well, the French film festival understands this and is planning on unveiling its 2020 selections in a week. But before that, according to Variety, we know some of the films that are expected to be given the selection badge.
The report claims that Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round,” Naomi Kawase’s “Comes Morning,” Francois Ozon “Ete 85,” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria” are all likely to be among the 50 films that are given the “Official Selection” moniker. Of the films mentioned above, “The French Dispatch” is the most obvious choice. When Anderson’s film was originally announced and a release time-frame was made public, a Cannes debut seemed inevitable. However, the other four films are all just as exciting, each coming from respected filmmakers and would have probably competed for the coveted Palme d’Or.
Also rumored to be joining the list, but not as much of a guarantee is the highly-anticipated film from Sofia Coppola, titled “On the Rocks.” ‘Rocks’ is the director’s first feature teaming with Apple TV+ and it’s unclear what the distribution strategy is for the new film. However, since there’s no Official Competition at this year’s festival, we don’t know if the film is planning for a theatrical release to comply with Cannes’ competition rules or not.
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However, even when the festival announces the dozens of films that will receive the Cannes 2020 badge, there will be some films that were sure-thing picks that won’t be mentioned. Nanni Moretti’s “Tre Piani” and Maiwenn’s “DNA” were both expected to take part in the French event but have reportedly made deals with other fall festivals in lieu of Cannes’ cancellation. And Leos Carax’s “Annette,” Bruno Dumont’s “On A Clear Half Morning,” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” are all expected to pull their consideration in favor of waiting a year and premiering at the 2021 event.
The official selections for this year’s canceled Cannes Film Festival are expected to be announced on June 3.