Cannes 2015: a selection safer – Liberation

For several months, all of Cannes infotrafic tamtams had of the relay together at least two predictions. In a fresh arrival of new entrants and new faces in the most scrutinized film festival in the world. On the other hand, a traffic jam of masterpieces on the Croisette expected for the month of May.

The first will be proven correct, but not, first, in the sense that we had been heard. The merry new festival president Pierre Lescure, opened Thursday morning in Paris the traditional press conference announcing the selection breaks ground with the use of his predecessor, Gilles Jacob, who took pleasure to dive assistance in a deep coma before the Chief Executive Officer and Chief programmer, Thierry Fremaux, takes the floor. Instead of the customary homélique tea on the 1942 movie of the state before yesterday, freshly took office boss had pulled the gun on marketing partnerships, fingering playful list of new pacts for the upcoming chandeliers with of nice shops such as Kering Group (owned by François Pinault) and MasterCard, swelled the ranks of L’Oreal shampoo factories and channel decoders cocaïnés more – but still nothing with Pfizer and Monsanto. More than ever, it was to show the muscles, how to score Cannes belongs to another dimension than any other art fair, even hammering the phrase “world’s biggest festival” enough times to terrorize the audience (and Bayreuth and the Venice Biennale, and Lussas.)

The new president of the festival, Pierre Lescure and the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Programmer Thierry Fremaux, a duet in great shape this morning in Paris. (Photo Loic Venance. AFP)

To judge another omen announced by oracles overheated in recent weeks (which we carried away in our enthusiasm, not even announced a few films shot), it will once again travel to Cannes and see everything, if possible without breaking anything. Until then, the nose consideration the wind of the list (even partial) happy selected does not inspire a craving for the time being mindless, despite the competition returns darlings like Gus van Sant Americans ( The Sea of ​​Trees , starring Matthew McConaughey, between the United States and Japan) and Todd Haynes ( Carol , romance lesbian fifties with Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett), Italy’s Nanni Moretti ( Madre Mia ), the Chinese Jia Zhang-ke ( Mountains May Depart ), the Taiwanese Hou Hsiao-hsien ( The Assassin ), or even the third feature film by Norwegian director Joachim Trier ( Louder Than Bombs in New York with Isabelle Huppert and Jesse Eisenberg) after Oslo August 31 .

No trace, pending additions announced early next week already webbed Thai Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the project river from The Arabian Nights Portuguese Miguel Gomes (after Tabou ), the Japanese director Naomi Kawase or Arnaud Desplechin, which called yet, no doubt, on a square in competition for his Three memories of my youth that need to go out theaters on May 20th Cannes in full fury. The author of How I Got Into an Argument … (including the new movie would be a new branch) has other names, mostly less used this olympus, pass it before: Valérie Donzelli ( Marguerite and Julien with Anaïs Demoustier and Jeremiah Elkaïm costumes, from a script written for François Truffaut), Maïwenn ( My King , starring Vincent Cassel, Louis Garrel and Emmanuelle Bercot festival’s opening film director High Head ), Stéphane Brizé ( The Market Act , with Vincent Lindon) and Jacques Audiard ( Dheepan project without stars cul-de-bowl but with Sri Lankan Tamils ​​in place – it’s free)

A national contingent that smells rather million tickets and premium. time France 2 that copyright kamikaze radicalism, like also other selected Italian flag alongside Moretti regulars Matteo Garrone ( Tale of Tales ) and Paolo Sorrentino ( Youth ), a priori guarantee a Cannes echo the upcoming Oscars. All this, despite a relative rejuvenation of the average profile of troops competing for the Palme d’Or (especially Greek Yorgos Lanthimos and Hungarian László Nemes) sweat a steel armor taste.

Woody Allen out of competition

As a counterpoint, the section (small) sister Un certain regard, also still to complete, gives pride to unknown names and multi-sounding Indian, Korean and Mexican. Only detach themselves at first those of the master of Japanese ghosts Kiyoshi Kurosawa ( Travel to the other side ), Romanian Corneliu Porumboiu ( The Treasury ) and Radu Muntean ( The Bottom Floor ), the French Alice Winocour ( Maryland, after Augustine ) and the Italian Roberto Minervini installed in Texas ( The Other Side , preceded by a flattering rumor).

Out of competition, Woody Allen ( An irrational man ), Barbet Schroeder ( Amnesia ), George Miller ( Mad Max: Fury Road ) and the first film directed by Nathalie Portman (summary in 1:35 of the saga of 900 pages of Amos Oz, A story of love and darkness ) are especially invited to come embellish garnish with a red carpet where Thierry Fremaux reaffirmed its intention to conduct a relentless hunt selfies, the “practice ridiculous and grotesque “. Take that, Obama.

For the rest, nothing about the weather, about which, however, more than anything else tenses future accredited conservators and other beachgoers, not announced or hacking scandal of the festival on the model DSK-Ferrara last year, no new draft backroom Nespresso on the roof of the palace. But on the other hand plethora of “dives into society in crisis” , the old obsession diver reporter Thierry Fremaux, even snorkeling this morning after watching the hard of 1854 films submitted to the selection.