Montreal director joins Cannes filmmaking elite
Villeneuve’s thriller Sicario named Canada’s contender for festival’s Palme d’Or glory
Just hours before Denis Villeneuve’s thriller Sicario was announced as Canada’s Palme d’Or contender at next month’s Cannes Film Festival, a symbolic torch-passing took place in his hometown of Montreal.
The “torch” was a bottle of champagne, presented by Villeneuve’s friend and fellow Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan, who competed for Canada last year at Cannes, winning the Jury Prize for Mommy, a family drama.
“He said, ‘Come over, I want to have a drink with you,’ ” Villeneuve said in an interview, recounting a call he received Wednesday night, when he was still sworn to secrecy before Thursday’s official announcement.
“I arrived there and he had a bottle of champagne and said, ‘So, let’s celebrate!’ And I said, ‘Celebrate what?’ And his answer was, ‘You just told me!’ ”
Villeneuve’s drug-war thriller Sicario, set in Mexico and titled for the Spanish word for “hit man,” is among the 17 films from around the world competing for the Palme, a prestigious prize considered second only to Oscar’s Best Picture for movie glory.
It stars Emily Blunt as an idealistic FBI agent who crosses the border in the company of a U.S. government official (Josh Brolin) and a hired assassin (Benicio Del Toro) to take down a violent Mexican drug-lord.
This is the first shot at the Palme for the genial Villeneuve, 47. He first presented a film at Cannes in 1997, as part of the multi-director film Cosmos, which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar program.
He has been making his name in Hollywood lately, with the 2013 child kidnap drama Prisoners, starring Hugh Jackman.
He has also announced plans to make a sequel to the sci-fi classic Blade Runner, with Harrison Ford once again starring.
“Honestly, I’m proud of this film,” Villeneuve said of Sicario, admitting that he was beginning to wonder if Cannes would ever elevate him to the Palme competition. This year’s festival, the 68th edition, runs May 13-24.
“As a filmmaker, you try to make steps forward, but sometimes when you make a movie you don’t feel like you evolved. But for this one, I did. From my work with the actors to the precision of the storytelling, there was something about it that, as a filmmaker, I did evolve.”
He said he chose Britain’s Emily Blunt for the lead role because “she’s a very strong actress, and I needed an actress who was quite young and would be believable with a gun in her hand.”
Villeneuve’s rivals in the star-studded Palme competition lineup include Justin Kurzel’s Shakespeare adaptation Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard; Todd Haynes’ Carol, a 1950s-set love drama starring Cate Blanchett; Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees, a suicide drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe; Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, a dystopian sci-fi drama of forced marriage starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and John C. Reilly; Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, starring Michael Caine as a retired orchestra conductor summoned to play for the Queen; and Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs, a kitchen-sink drama starring Jesse Eisenberg, Isabelle Huppert and Gabriel Byrne.
Outside of the official competition, the Cannes 2015 offerings also include Woody Allen’s Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Parker Posey, a new Disney/Pixar movie, Inside Out, directed by Up’s Pete Docter, and the previously announced Mad Max: Fury Road, by George Miller, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
Announcing the slate of films at a Paris press conference Thursday morning, festival director Thierry Frémaux said there would be at least two more titles added to the competition before the fest kicks off May 13 with La Tête haute (Standing Tall), a coming-of-age drama starring Catherine Deneuve and newcomer Rod Paradot.
The film, which will premiere out of competition, is directed by actor/ filmmaker Emmanuelle Bercot, only the second woman director in the festival’s history to open the big show.
And Bercot gets to walk the red carpet up the steps of the Palais des Festivals for a second film: Maiwenn’s Mon roi ( My King), a romantic drama pairing Bercot with Vincent Cassel.
Mon roi is one of two films directed by women in the Palme competition, the other being Valerie Donzelli’s Marguerite and Julien, a drama of incestuous love starring Anais Demoustier and Jeremie Elkaim.
Frémaux repeated his previously announced ban on “selfies” on the Palais red carpet, saying they slow the cavalcade of talent.
How that ban will be enforced remains to be seen.