The near-final lineup for the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (taking place May 8 to May 19) has been announced. A few additional screenings may be added in the coming days, but those hoping to see Tag headline will be cruising for disappointment. The opener this year will be Everybody Knows, directed by Asghar Farhadi, and starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.
Recognizable films (for me) are few and far between. Spike Lee is making an appearance with BlacKkKlansman, a movie about an African-American cop who infiltrates (and eventually leads) a Ku Klux Klan chapter. Jean-Luc Godard is represented by a film called The Image Book, while Jafar Panahi’s new movie, Three Faces, will be shown.
As previously reported, Solo: A Star Wars Story will make its debut at Cannes. Director Pawel Pawlikowski (Oscar winner for Ida) will put Cold War on display. David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) will present his new film, Under the Silver Lake, starring Andrew Garfield.
As reported by Variety, the films this year seem to be mostly smaller and unknown, and that is claimed to be by design. According to Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux, his programming team deliberately chose films by lesser-known (and in some cases unheard-of) directors. Frémaux also noted that several high-profile directors who would normally show off their finished products at the festival were still in the proverbial editing room.
When confronted with the lack of female directors (only three female filmmakers are represented), Frémaux stated that “the films that were selected were chosen for their own intrinsic qualities,” rather than the gender of their directors. He continued by saying, “The world will never be the same again [following #MeToo and #TimesUp] … and we will question our own practices about the gender parity” regarding equal pay and jury selection. He finished by emphasizing that “there will never be a selection with a positive discrimination for women.”
Cannes also excludes Netflix releases due to a law in France that requires a three-year gap between theatrical release and streaming.
Without further ado, here is your 2018 Cannes Film Festival lineup:
OPENER
Everybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi)
COMPETITION
Asako I & II AKA Netemo Sametemo (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhang-Ke)
At War (Stéphane Brizé)
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)
Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
Capernaum (Nadine Labaki)
Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Dogman (Matteo Garrone)
Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson)
The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard)
Leto AKA Summer (Kirill Serebrennikov)
My Bitter Land AKA Lazzaro Felice (Alice Rohrwacher)
Shoplifters (Kore-Eda Hirokazu)
Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré)
Three Faces (Jafar Panahi)
Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)
Yomeddine (A.B. Shawky)
UN CERTAIN REGARD (nontraditional storytelling)
Angel Face (Vanessa Filho)
Border (Ali Abbasi)
El Angel (Luis Ortega)
Euphoria (Valeria Golino)
Friend (Wanuri Kahiu)
The Gentle Indifference of the World (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)
Girl (Lukas Dhont)
The Harvesters (Etienne Kallos)
In My Room (Ulrich Köhler)
Little Tickles (Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer)
Manto (Nandita Das)
My Favorite Fabric (Gaya Jiji)
Sextape AKA On Your Knees, Guys (Antoine Desrosières)
Sofia (Meyem Benm’Barek)
OUT OF COMPETITION
Le Grand Bain (Gilles Lellouche)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard)
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Arctic (Joe Penna)
Gongjak AKA The Spy Gone North (Yoon Jong-Bing)
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Dead Souls (Wang Bing)
La Traversée (Romain Goupil)
O Grande Circo Místico (Carlo Diegues)
Pope Francis – A Man of His Word (Wim Wenders)
The State Against Mandela and the Others (Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte)
10 Years in Thailand (Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnon Sriphol & Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
To the Four Winds (Michel Toesca)
Leave a Comment