The 71st Cannes Film Festival opens tonight and for the next 10 days its red-carpet glitz, cinematic debates and potential controversies will dominate the news cycle -- exhaust it, to be precise. While security was a talking point last year, the world's largest movie event in 2018 has already invoked discussion through several structural changes -- from moving the opening to Tuesday instead of Wednesday, the revamp of the press screening schedule that has never changed for decades, and notably the selection of films that hints at Cannes' readiness to become less predictable.
With the #metoo repercussions and Netflix spat still lingering, Cannes opens tonight with Everybody Knows, a domestic thriller starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem and directed by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, a divorce drama that was a hit in Bangkok). It is one of the 21 titles to compete for the coveted Palme d'Or, to be judged by a jury led by Cate Blanchett. From here on, the festival will roll out a slew of world premieres that will set the course of discussion for the rest of the year. Here are some highlights and titles to look out for.
The Asian crew
It's a good year for Asian titles. First off, the omnibus film Ten Years Thailand, featuring four short films about Thai society at a crossroads, will screen in the Special Screening section; it's the sole Southeast Asian film in Cannes this year (we'll have more on that tomorrow).
(Video YouTube/FilmsForFree Thailand)
A big contingent will descend from China, with three films that are much anticipated: Jia Zhangke's Ash Is Purest White is in the top-tier Competition; Bi Gan, an exciting young filmmaker who stunned with Kaili Blues in 2015, will present his new film Long Day's Journey Into Night, in the sidebar Un Certain Regard section; and lastly, the indie maverick Wang Bing will screen his eight-hour-long film Dead Souls -- it's going to be gritty, like when you chew pebbles, as typical of Wang's films; it will also be one of the longest films Cannes ever shows.
Japan and Korea, too, have their finest filmmakers in the Competition. Lee Chang-dong, Korea's former culture minister and one of its most respected directors, is back in Cannes with Burning, adapted from a Haruki Murakami story. Two Japanese filmmakers are also in the Competition: Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose films have always been popular in Thailand, will present the domestic drama Shoplifters; while Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose Happy Hour screened in Bangkok last year, will make his first Cannes presence with Asako I & II.
On the far corner of Asia, the elite Competition will screen Nadine Labaki's Capernaum, the first Lebanese film in the top section; Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a Turkish master who won the Palme d'Or in 2014, will return to the red carpet with The Wild Pear Tree; Jafar Panahi from Iran, who's officially banned from making movies, has made a film called Three Faces that is invited into the competition; and from Egypt is Yomeddine by Abu Bakr Shawky, also in the top section.
The potential controversy
Cannes welcomes back Lars Von Trier, the Danish provocateur whose career was shaped by Cannes back in the late 1990s and who is now a walking lightning rod -- with his films and his penchant for infuriating comments (he was banned from the festival in 2012 for making a Nazi joke). Von Trier will premiere The House That Jack Built out of Competition; the film stars Matt Dillon as a high-IQ serial killer who murders scores of women over 12 years (Uma Thurman plays one of his potential victims). With the #metoo movement in full swing and the debate on treatment of women very much the zeitgeist, Von Trier's past record in cinematic brutalisation of female characters -- the women in his films always suffer a terrible fate -- is likely to set the fuse ready among Cannes' 4,000-strong journalists.
And already a full-blown controversy, Terry Gilliam's long-awaited film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was in April announced as the festival's closing film, but has since been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute that threatens to revoke its premiere. The film, 20 years in the making, stars Adam Driver as a man warped into the fantasy world of medieval Spain. Cannes insists on showing the film on its final day, and the case is still developing as of early this week.
(Video YouTube/ONE Media)
Meanwhile, the first Kenyan film to be screened in Cannes has already been banned by the country's censors: Rafiki, directed by Wanuri Kahiu, is a lesbian love story -- Kenya bans gay sex, a crime punished by imprisonment. Rafiki is showing tomorrow in the sidebar Un Certain Regard section.
The political warriors
Jafar Panahi has been banned by the Iranian government from making films for eight years -- but he has continued to do it on the sly. He has also been slapped with a prison term, though it hasn't been enforced. His new film Three Faces is in the Competition, and Cannes has made an appeal to Iran to let Panahi leave the country to present the film. No word has been heard if this will be allowed.
Likewise, Kirill Serebrennikov has been under house arrest in Russia for politically-related charges. His new film Summer, about the life of a rock star under an oppressive regime, is his first Competition entry, and yet it's not clear if the director will be able to make it to the red carpet of his own movie.
Burning by Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong. Festival de Cannes
Cannes Film Festival runs from today until May 19.
