Films from Michel Gondry, Hong Sangsoo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.
Scroll down for the full selection
Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the SRF.
Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.
Six of the 19 titles are directed by women, compared to last year’s 11 titles from female directors.
Highlights
Directors’ Fortnight will open with a French film, Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, which is based on the true story of Pierre Goldman, a French left-wing intellectual who was convicted of several robberies and mysteriously assassinated. Kahn competed in Cannes in 2001 with Roberto Succo and won the Prix Jean Vigo during the festival in 1994 for Trop de Bonheur that screened at Directors’ Fortnight. He competed in Berlin in 2004 with Red Lights and in 2018 with The Prayer that saw Anthony Bajon win the Silver Bear for Best Actor.
The sidebar will close with Hong Sangsoo’s In Our Day, the prolific South Korean director’s 12th Cannes premiere following 2021’s In Front Of Your Face that screened in the Cannes Premiere section.
French auteur Michel Gondry makes his return after a nearly decade-long big screen break with The Book Of Solutions. French actor Pierre Niney stars alongside Blanche Gardin, Camille Rutherford and Vincent Elbaz. The plot has been kept under wraps but is rumoured to be about a filmmaker battling creative demons. Kinology is handling international sales for the title produced by Partizan Films that will be released by The Jokers in France.
Also from France and sold by Kinology, Bertrand Mandico’s She Is Conan that revisits the Robert E. Howard character Conan the Barbarian, this time with actresses playing the main protagonist. Mandico’s last feature sci-fi western After Blue screened in Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar and won prizes in Locarno and Fantastic Fest.
Fellow French filmmaker Pierre Creton will bring A Prince, his Normandy-shot film about a gardening apprentice.
From the US, Joanna Arnow has been selected with her first feature The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed. She won the Silver Bear Jury Prize in Berlin in 2015 for her short Bad At Dancing. Another US title is cinematographer-director Sean Price Williams’ first solo feature The Sweet East, following 2011’s Eyes Find Eyes, that he co-directed with Jean-Manuel Fernandez.
More first features include Thien An Pham’s Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell; Ilya Povolotsky’s Grace; Zarrar Kahn’s In Flames; Weston Razooli’s Riddle of Fire; and Zihan Geng’s A Song Sung Blue.
The Other Laurens is the latest feature from Belgian director Claude Schmitz, about a private detective whose niece asks him to look into her father’s death which gets him embroiled in false identities, fantasy and drug trafficking. French actor Olivier Rabourdin stars alongside Marc Barbé, Tibo Vandenborre and Francis Soetens. The film is sold by Best Friend Forever.
Portugese duo Filipa Reis and João Miller Guerra bring Legua, their portrait of the eponymous Portugese village that follows two generations of rural workers and friends when one is forced to care for the other.
Further titles include Indian director Kan Behl’s Hindi family drama Agra; Georgian filmmaker Elena Naveriani’s third feature Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry based on a novel from Georgian author and feminist activity Tamta Melashili; Spanish filmmaker Elena Martín Gimeno’s relationship drama Creatura; Cameroonian, Belgium-based director known for her powerful documentaries Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette; and Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi’s Déserts that follows the journey of two friends through Southern Morocco.
Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham’s Valley will get a special screening slot to mark the 1993 film’s 30th anniversary. The Portuguese filmmaker died in 2015 at age 106, having made more than 50 films and competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on five occasions with the fest awarding him an honorary Palme d’Or.
Revamp
Founded in 1969, Directors’ Fortnight is heading into its 55th edition with a complete makeover.
While its English-language name remains unchanged, the section has officially changed its name from La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs to La Quinzaine des Cinéastes in an effort to be more inclusive. “Réalisateurs” is the masculine form of the word “directors” in French, while “Cinéastes” is the word for “filmmaker” and can refer to any gender.
Rejl took over from Paolo Moretti who signed off after last year’s edition following three years in the position. Directors’ Fortnight also appointed a new selection committee in September it described as “gender equal and eclectic”, comprised of seven programmers and four consultants.
Also newly revamped are the rules for entry with what Rejl says is “an emphasis on the big screen experience. Any film is eligible as long as those behind it commit to a cinema release in France, instead of going straight to a streaming platform or the television. This is our way of supporting the work of distributors and exhibitors.”
10 short films also make up the complete selection.
Directors’ Fortnight 2023 Selection
Abraham’s Valley
Dir. Manoel de Oliveira (Special Screening)
The Goldman Case
Dir. Cédric Kahn (Opening film)
Agra
Dir. Kanu Behl
The Other Laurens (L’Autre Laurens)
Dir. Claude Schmitz
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Dir. Thien An Pham
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
Dir. Elene Naveriani
Grace
Dir. Ilya Povolotsky
She is Conann
Dir. Bertrand Mandico
Creatura
Dir. Elena Martín Gimeno
Déserts
Dir. Faouzi Bensaïdi
In Flames
Dir. Zarrar Kahn
Légua
Dir. Filipa Reis & João Miller Guerra
The Book Of Solutions
Dir. Michel Gondry
Mambar Pierrette
Dir. Rosine Mbakam
Riddle Of Fire
Dir. Weston Razooli
The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed
Dir. Joanna Arnow
The Sweet East
Dir. Sean Price Williams
Un Prince
Dir. Pierre Creton
A Song Sung Blue
Dir. Zihan Geng
In Our Day (Closing Film)
Dir. Hong Sangsoo
No comments yet