Quebec filmmaker snubbed
Movies by Dolan and Egoyan fail to make cut at French festival
A new Coen Brothers film set in the world of 1960s folksingers, Steven Soderbergh’s biography of Liberace — with Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist — and a Roman Polanski picture about an actress who auditions for a part in a sado-masochistic play are among the movies in official competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
Missing from the lineup, announced Thursday, are two upcoming dramas from Canada. Tom at the Farm, from Quebec wunderkind Xavier Dolan, and Devil’s Knot, a ripped-from-the-headlines mystery directed by Cannes favourite Atom Egoyan, were thought to be in line for selection.
The Canadian connection will rest on actor Ryan Gosling, the star of Only God Forgives, a crime thriller about a man hiding out in the world of Thai boxing who must now avenge the murder of his brother.
It’s directed by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, who was named best director at Cannes two years ago for the crime drama Drive, also starring Gosling.
The Coen Brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis, stars Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. It’s loosely based on the memoirs of folksinger Dave Von Ronk, a fixture in Greenwich Village in the 1960s.
Soderbergh’s film, Behind the Candelabra, was made for television — the director has announced his retirement from feature films — and co-stars Matt Damon as Scott Thorson, Liberace’s younger lover.
Polanski returns to the Croisette with Venus in Furs, based on the play by David Ives. It stars Polanski’s wife, Emmanuelle Seigner. Another Polanski film, Weekend of a Champion — a rarely seen documentary about race-car driver Jackie Stewart — will have a special screening.
Also in competition this year is Nebraska, the new film from Alex- ander Payne (The Descendants), who was on last year’s competition jury. Nebraska stars veteran actor Bruce Dern as an old alcoholic who talks his son into driving him from Montana to Nebraska so he can cash a winning lottery ticket.
Another highlight is The Immigrant, the first new movie in five years from American director James Gray. It stars Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner in a story about an immigrant woman who is tricked into a life of burlesque until a magician tries to save her.
Festival director Thierry Frémaux, who announced the lineup, said the films were chosen from 1,858 entries. After a controversy last year over the fact that no female directors had movies in competition, there is one this year: Italy’s Valeria Bruni Tedeschi with Un Château en Italie.
It was previously announced that Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby will be the opening night film and Jérôme Salle’s Zulu will close the festival. The competition jury is headed by Steven Spielberg, who is travelling to the Riviera on his yacht and will apparently reside there during the festival.
The other films in competition are: Michael Kohlhaas, Arnaud des Pallières (France); Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, Arnaud Desplechin (France); Heli, Amat Escalante (Mexico); The Past, Asghar Farhadi (Iran); Grisgris, Mahamat Saleh Haroun (Chad); A Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke (China); Like Father Like Son, Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan); La Vie d’Adèle, Abdellatif Kechiche (Tunisia); Shield of Straw, Takashi Miike (Japan); Jeune et Jolie, François Ozon (France); The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino (Italy); Borgman, Alex van Warmerdam (Netherlands).
The festival is from May 15 to 26.