After months of speculation and heated anticipation, the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, now in its 62 year has unveiled its line-up.
As expected, previously predicted titles like Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” Michael Haneke’s “White Ribbon,” Park Chan Wook’s “Thirst,” Ken Loach’s “Looking For Eric,” and Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” were all announced as part of the line-up.
Already announced titles, either officially or unofficially tipped to appear, were officially confirmed like Pixar’s “UP!” which is kicking off the festival, plus Quentin Tarantino’s audacious, almost 3-hour WWII flick, “Inglourious Basterds,” Ang Lee’s comedy “Taking Woodstock” and Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist.”
The biggest surprise was the inclusion of, “The Thorn In The Heart” (“L’epines Dans Le Couer”) a documentary by Michel Gondry about his aunt. The biggest film excluded that many predicted would be there but failed to make the final cut was Todd Solondz’s “Forgiveness,” and but other than that there doesn’t seem to be any major films absent from the list.
Note, running times are listed in the French version of the press release which puts Tarantino’s ‘Basterds’ at 2 hours and 40 minutes, “Taking Woodstock” at 1 hour and 50 minutes, Gilliam’s ‘Parnassus at 2 hours and 2 minutes and Gondry’s doc at 1 hour and 22 minutes.
Here’s the entire list.
Cannes 2009: IN COMPETITION
Abrazos Rotos” (Broken Embraces), directed by Pedro Almodovar
“Antichrist,” directed by Lars Von Trier
“Bright Star,” directed by Jane Campion
“Enter The Void,” directed by Gasper Noe
“Faces,” directed by Tsai Ming-liang
“Fish Tank,” directed by Andrea Arnold
“Kinatay,” directed by directed by Brillante Mendoza
“Les Herbes folles,” directed by Alain Resnais
“In The Beginning,” directed by Xavier Giannoli
“Inglorious Basterds,” directed by Quentin Tarantino
“Looking For Eric,” directed by Ken Loach
“Map of the Sounds of Tokyo,” directed by Isabel Coixet
“Mr. Nobody,” directed by Jaco von Bormael
“A Prophet,” directed by Jacques Audiard
“Taking Woodstock,” directed by Ang Lee
“The Time That Remains,” directed by Elia Suleiman
“Thirst,” directed by directed by Park Chan Wook
“Vengeance,” directed by Johnny To
“Vincere,” directed by Marco Bellocchio
“The White Ribbon,” directed by Michael Haneke
UN CERTAIN REGARD
“Mother,” directed by Bong Joon Ho
“Irene,” directed by Alain Cavalier
“Precious,” directed by Lee Daniels
“Demain Des L’Aube,” directed by Denis Dercourt
“Adrift,” directed by Heitor Dhalia
“Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats,” directed by Bahman Ghobadi
“Los Viajes del Viento,” directed by Ciro Guerra
“Le Pere de mes Enfants,” directed by Mia Hansen-Love
“Tales from the Golden Age,” directed by Hanno Hoefer, Ravan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru
“Tale in the Darkness,” directed by Nikolay Khomeriki
“Air Doll,” directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda
“Dogtooth,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
“Tzar,” directed by Pavel Lounguine
“Independence,” directed by Raya Martin
“Politist, Adjectiv,” directed by Corneliu Porumboiu
“Nymph,” directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
“Morrer Como Un Homem,” directed by Jao Pedro Rodgrigues
“Eyes Wide Open,” directed by Haim Tabakman
“Samson and Delilah,” directed by Warwick Thornton
“The Silent Army,” directed by Jean van de Velde
OUT OF COMPETITION
Agora de Alejandro Amenabar
The Imagianirum of Docteur Parnassius de Terry Gilliam
L’armée du crime by Robert Guédiguian
MIDNIGHT SCREENING
“Drag Me To Hell by Sam Raimi
“A Town Called Panic” by Patar et Aubier
“Ne te retourne pas” by Marina de Van
SPECIAL SELECTION
“L’épine dans le coeur” by Michel Gondry
“Me Neighbour, My Killer” by Anne Aghion
“Manilla” by Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix Jr
“Min ye” by Souleymane Cissé
“Pétition” by Zao Yang
“Jaffa” by Karen Yedaya
OPENING & CLOSING THE FESTIVAL
“Up!” by Pete Docter
“Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky” by Jan Kounen
In anticipation of the announcement, Cannes relaunched its website and released a new poster done in the style of Michelangelo Antonioni’s haunting existential 1960 masterpiece, “L’Avventura” which starred the great and alluring Monica Vitti and won the festival’s jury prize that year.
The festival jury this year is being chaired by Isabelle Huppert and members of the jury include Asia Argento, Robin Wright Penn, Nuri Bilge Ceylan (director of the Turkish film, “Three Monkeys”), Shu Qi (Taiwanese actress), James Gray (“Two Lovers”), Hanif Kuresishi (U.K. screenwriter), and Lee Chang-Dong (Korean director).
The 62 annual Cannes Film Festival runs May 13-24, baring unforeseen economic circumstances, you’ll hopefully see members of The Playlist reporting from the field at some point (no guarantees, unless you wanna help pay ;). Thanks to our friend Julian at Allocine in France who sent us the list at quarter to 6 a.m. this morning.