The 56 films from the official Cannes Festival selection that did not take place

Text by: Siegfried Forster

Finally, there are films, a label, but no festival ... Wednesday, June 3, the president and general delegate of the Cannes Festival announced an official selection with 56 films with a label "73rd Festival de Cannes ”, even if the latter did not take place. Too bad for the three films selected from the African continent.

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Among the films that missed their ascent on the Croisette, there are filmmakers from countries very rarely represented at the Cannes Film Festival. For example a Bulgarian film, February , by Kamen Kalev. Or Beginning , by Déa Kulumbegashvili, a Georgian feature film, and then the documentary En route pour le billion , the long-awaited new work by Congolese Dieudo Hamadi. Two other filmmakers from the African continent were selected for the Selection: Souad , from the Egyptian Ayten Amin, and Rouge , from the Algerian filmmaker Farid Bentoumi. All these filmmakers will never know if, without coronavirus, they would have won the Palme d'Or.

Having refused an online edition, this year, there will be neither competition nor prizes. However, to bring to life the films deemed worthy of this 73rd edition which did not take place, President Pierre Lescure and general delegate Thierry Frémaux decided to establish an official selection anyway. The 56 films selected will have a “Cannes Film Festival” quality label to support them when they are presented at other festivals or when they are released in theaters.

Equal to equal or without hierarchy?

The largest film festival in the world therefore had to improvise in the face of the global health crisis. Result: instead of twenty films vying for the Palme d'Or and as many feature films in Un certain regard, the traditional section of surprises and young talents, the fifty films are all at the same level (of others will say without any hierarchy) in this exceptional selection.

This egalitarian approach at the same time announces a record edition: 2,067 feature films have been sent to the Festival. The number of countries represented also increased, to 147, against 138 countries in 2019. And even if the number of women directors having applied is slightly down compared to 2019 (532 against 575), in the official selection, the share of filmmakers women increased further, 16 from 14 in 2019.

The rise of comedies

15 first feature films are part of the Official Selection, against 10 in 2019. Is it the experience of confinement that caused this desire to also select five comedies and four cartoons including the latest from Pixar studios, Soul, de Pete Docter?

Thierry Frémaux explains his choice by a desire to "  take risks or try things  ". Here we are with Les Deux Alfred by Bruno Podalydès and with Un Triomphe by Emmanuel Courcol, "  a feel good movie with Kad Merad  ".

Spike Lee and Steve McQueen

Among the big regrets of this cancellation of the festival on the Croisette, there is the missed meeting between two stars with explosive ideas: one side the American Spike Lee, the president of the jury of this aborted edition, on the other side Steve McQueen, plastic art figure who became an icon of the seventh art with Twelve Years A Slave . The British artist will present in the official selection two films, Lovers Rock and Mangrove, "  a film of the trial of police officers who harass the black community . "According to Frémaux, a subject which"  resonates very dramatically with what happened to George Floyd and Adama Traore  ".

More traditional, we find on Thierry Frémaux's list "  the faithful of Cannes, the tenors  ". American filmmaker Wes Anderson will carry the label with The French Dispatch , helped by a dream cast: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and Timothée Chalamet.

Among the regulars of Cannes, we find with great pleasure the Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase who will tell a moving story about adoption, True Mothers . As for the Dane Thomas Vinterberg, he will deal with the crisis of the fifties with Druk .

21 French films

With 21 feature films, French cinema is extremely well off in this somewhat special official selection. Among the most awaited films, DNA , where Maiwenn will approach his Franco-Algerian roots. François Ozon appears with Summer 85 .

According to Thierry Frémaux, thanks to the announcement of this exceptional official selection, the ambition of the Cannes Film Festival has remained intact: “  placing emerging talents on the world map (…) The Official Selection will therefore retain its role. Different, but with the same convictions and, thanks to all, with the same efficiency.  "

Keep " the same efficiency "

Wishes understandable, but not very realistic. Because to succeed in keeping " the same efficiency ", it will miss the dazzling, surprises and disappointments in Cannes cinemas, the debates and scandals arousing public interest, the good words and the gestures of the stars on the carpet red and the statements of the filmmakers on their vision of the world.

The choice to ignore a Palme d'Or, even a virtual one, risks arousing the spectators' impression that each labeled film finds itself drowned in this virtual list of 56 films coming out in lots of different places. Who can capture the Cannes spirit at the same time in Locarno, Telluride, Toronto, San Sebastian, Busan, Lyon and Angoulême? When the official selection was announced, the Mostra was not mentioned, so Venice probably did not want to play the game of Cannes. In the meantime, Thierry Frémaux has promised to explain soon “  how the Cannes Film Festival will deploy its activity next fall. "

► Read also:  The new digital frontiers of the Cannes Festival 2020

The 56 films of the Cannes Film Festival 2020 labeled " Official Selection " : 

The French Dispatch by Wes Anderson 

Summer 85 by François Ozon

Emmanuel Courcol's Triumph 

Here We Are by Nir Bergman 

Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock 

Mangrove by Steve McQueen 

Druk (Another Round) by Thomas Vinterberg 

Souad by Ayten Amin 

At dusk by Sharunas Bartas 

Naomi Kawase's True Mothers 

Maïwenn's DNA 

Heaven. To the Land of Happiness by Im Sang soo 

Lucas Belvaux's Men 

El Olvido que Seremos by Fernando Trueba 

Sang-Ho Yeon Peninsula 

The Real Thing by Koji Fukada 

Danielle Arbid's Simple Passion 

The Good Man by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar 

Things we say, things we do with Emmanuel Mouret 

Jonathan Nossiter's Last Words 

John and the Hole Pascual Sisto 

Limbo by Ben Sharrock 

A night doctor by Elie Wajeman 

Oskar Roehler's Terrible Child 

Falling by Viggo Mortensen 

Slalom by Charlène Favier 

Ibrahim by Samir Guesmi 

The Death of Cinema and My Father Also by Daniel Rosenberg 

Sixteen Spring by Suzanne Lindon 

Chiffon Boy by Nicolas Maury 

Antoinette in the Cévennes by Caroline Vignal 

Laurent Tirard's speech 

The Origin of the World by Laurent Lafitte 

Les Deux Alfred by Bruno Podalydès 

9 days at Raqqa by Xavier de Lauzanne 

The Truffle Hunters by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw 

On the road to the billionaire Dieudo Hamadi 

Gagarin by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh 

Broken Keys by Jimmy Keyrouz 

Casa de Antiguidades by João Paulo Miranda Maria 

Ninja Thyberg Pleasure 

If the wind falls from Nora Martirosyan 

Nadia, Butterfly by Pascal Plante 

Septet: The Sotry of Hong Kong by Ann Hui, Johnnie TO, Tsui Hark, Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo-Ping and Patrick Tam 

Ammonite by Francis Lee 

February by Kamen Kalev 

Teddy by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma 

At the beginning of Déa Kulumbegashvili 

Running with the wind from Wei Shujun 

Rascal by Peter Dourountzis 

Magnus von Horn sweatshirt 

Farid Bentoumi's red 

Aya and the witch of Goro Miyazaki 

Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen 

Josep d'Aurel 

Soul by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers

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• Cannes 2020
• Cinema
• Culture
• France
• Ground floor
• Egypt
• Algeria
• Culture Africa

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