In this week’s episode of The Screen Podcast, we take an in-depth look at the Cannes parallel sections that were unveiled earlier this week.
Watch above or listen below.
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Screen’s France correspondent and Cannes expert Rebecca Leffler joins host Wendy Mitchell to offer her insight into the Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight selections, having spoken to the artistic directors of both sections.
On Julien Rejl’s Directors’ Fortnight lineup, Leffler flagged the high number of animations and documentaries selected – three of each on the 19-strong list.
“[This] was intentional on the part of Julien and the selection committee,” says Leffler, with 94-year-old documentary auteur Alain Cavalier’s swansong Thanks For Coming and Quentin Dupieux’s mysterious animation Le Vertige among the highlights.
With Critics’ Week, nine of the 11 titles are feature debuts. “I think it does reflect [artistic director] Ava Cahen,” says Leffler. “She’s been there for five years now and [the section] really has an identity… Every year there is a theme running and this year there are a lot of coming-of-age films and a lot of films about war.”
Among them are Kosovar filmmaker Blerta Basholli’s Dua, about a 13-year-old girl caught up in the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, and UK-Yemeni filmmaker Sara Ishaq’s Yemen civil war-set debut The Station.
The team also takes another look at Thierry Fremaux’s official selection and share some Cannes survival tips.
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