Cannes 2018: Directors’ Fortnight unveils 20-film slate
BIRDS of Passage will open the Cannes-adjacent Directors’ Fortnight selection, with its roster also including Nicolas Cage film Mandy, Japanese anime Mirai, forest park drama Leave No Trace, and Vincent Cassel comedy Le Monde Est à Toi.
Colombian drama Birds of Passage will open the 2018 Directors’ Fortnight on May 9 in Cannes.
Organised by the French Directors Guild and celebrating its 50th edition, Directors’ Fortnight is not part of the Cannes International Film Festival but has been running alongside it since 1969.
Ciro Guerra, who has won two previous Cannes trophies with ‘The Wind Journeys’ (2009) and then Embrace of the Serpent (2015), was joined by his producer on the latter, Cristina Gallego, as co-director on Birds of Passage.
The story follows the fortunes of an indigenous family who become central to the Colombian marijuana boom of the 1970s.
Also part of the 14-day festival is Mandy, which has already picked up a buzz following its Sundance debut in January.
Canada’s Panos Cosmatos is at the helm, directing his second film, in which mainstream star Nicolas Cage becomes a man searching for the religious cult responsible for his daughter’s death.
Similarly, Mamoru Hosoda anime Mirai is also attracting attention from national distributors ahead of a July 2018 Japanese release.
After his 2006 adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Hosoda’s 2009 animated movie Summer Wars helped put him on the international radar, and he followed it with Wolf Children and The Boy and the Beast, both of which were subject to critical acclaim.
Family drama Leave No Trace stars Ben Foster (Warcraft: The Beginning) and Thomasin McKenzie (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) as a father and daughter discovered living in a forest park in Oregon, and is directed by Academy Award nominee Debra Granik of Winter’s Bone fame.
Controversial Argentinean director Gaspar Noé, whose four previous features have all been nominated at Cannes, three of them winning their respective categories, is also among the selection with 1990s-era dance and drug film Climax.
And French comedy Le monde est à toi has Karim Leklou of Heat Wave, Vincent Cassel of La Haine and Black Swan, and five-time César Award winner Isabelle Adjani of Queen Margot among its leads. That’s directed by music video man Romain Gavras, whose feature debut was Cassel pic Our Day Will Come.
The 50th Directors’ Fortnight runs May 9-19.