49th Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Award Winners

Winners were announced a few minutes ago but seems official press release was sent to media earlier, as all had articles with winners before the actual "live" ceremony via facebook video.

Anyway winners are not available yet at official site and perhaps when they post, we will find the Special Mentions (if there are any) as event in section official twitter there are no mentions to special mentios (lol).

According to some cinema pundits, section top award is the one given by CICAE and this year went to an American film that quite a few film critics praised, The Rider by Chloe Zhao; then among only European films, Jonas Carpignano's A Ciambra gets the Label Europa Cinemas Award and ONLY among French films the most pleasant surprise as there is a tie between the films by Claire Denis, Let The Sunshine In, and Cannes regular Philippe Garrel's Lover for a Day.

Undoubtedly Claire Denis win is the reason why Juliette Binoche stayed for so long in Cannes as usually most top-actors come and go very fast.  Nevertheless, I'm quite pleased to see Binoche all over Cannes events and premieres.

Winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners at official site go here; not available yet, but soon article will be there.

The Selection

The official announcement came to me in the wee hours but brave me, saw it live. Yes, after went back to sleep (lol) as was way too-early to wake up.   So today will be a slow-motion day for me, sigh.

Have very little doubt to call this year's selection eclectic as find a very diverse mix of film from all over the world but with too-many American films for my taste, especially when some American films come from this year's Sundance fest.  Still, I'm very glad that some of my wish list films do appear in the selection as will give us glimpses of great directors plus great French actresses.

There are some films by established directors like Claire Denis, Philippe Garrel, Bruno Dumont, Abel Ferrara, Amos Gitai and Sharunas Bartas; but, also there are newcomers and directors with their second or third film which undoubtedly balance the selection. Then we have films with great French cinema actresses like Juliette Binoche, Cecile de France, Vanessa Paradis; so, seems there will be a lot of 'stars' walking on the Promenade de la Croisette this year.

The selection in figures.  Out of the 1,649 feature films and 1.679 short films seen comes a Selection with with 19 feature films, 10 short films, 5 debut feature films, 5 French films, 5 American films, 3 Italian films and 7 films by female directors.  There are five French filmmakers, three Italians and a Lithuanian for a total of nine European directors.

Feature Films

Opening Film: *Un Beau Soleil Intérieur (Let The Sunshine In), Claire Denis, France SACD Award Winner
(*) Closing Film: Patti Cake$, Geremy Jasper, USA

*A Ciambra, Jonas Carpignano, Italy, France and Germany Label Europa Cinemas Prize Winner
Alive in France, Abel Ferrara, France (documentary)
Bushwick, Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, USA
(*) Cuori Puri (Pure Hearts), Roberto De Paolis Italy
Frost, Sharunas Bartas, Lithuania, France, Ukraine and Poland
(*) I Am Not A Witch, Rungano Nyoni, UK, France and Germany
Jeannette, L'Enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (Jeannette, the Childhood of Joan of Arc), Bruno Dumont, France
*L'Amant d'un Jour (Lover for a Day), Philippe Garrel, France SACD Award Winner
(*) La Defensa del Dragón, Natalia Santa, Colombia
L'Intrusa, Leonardo Di Costanzo, Italy
Marlina si pembunuh dalam empat babak (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts), Mouly Surya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and France
Mobile Homes, Vladimir de Fontenay, Canada and France
(*) Nothingwood, Sonia Krolund, France and Germany (documentary)
Ôtez-moi d'un doute (Just to Be Sure), Carine Tardieu, France and Belgium
The Florida Project, Sean Baker, USA
*The Rider, Chloé Zhao, USA CICAE Arte Cinemas Prize Winner
West of the Jordan River (Field Diary Revisited), Amos Gitaï, Israel and France (documentary)

Special Screenings
A Fábrica de Nada (The Nothing Factory), Pedro Pinho, Portugal

(*) First Film. Competes for the Camera d'Or.

Short Films

Água Mole, Laura Gonçalves and Alexandra Ramires (Xá), Portugal (animation), 9'
La Bouche, Camilo Restrepo, France
Copa-Loca, Christos Massalas, Greece
Crème de menthe, David Philippe Gagné and Jean-Marc E. Roy, Canada
Farpões, Baldios, Marta Mateus, Portugal
Min Börda (The Burden), Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Sweden, 13'
Nada, Gabriel Martins, Brazil
*Retour à Genoa City, Benoit Grimalt, France, 28' (documentary) Illy Prize Winner
Tijuana Tales, Jean-Charles Hue, France, 15' (experimental)
Trešnje (Cherries), Dubravka Turić, Croatia

Check available info and trailer @MOC
Check available posters for ALL Cannes films, including la Quinzaine here.

To check list at official site go here.


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4/20/17
A few hours ago in Paris, la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Artistic Director, Edouard Waintrop, announced the films in this year selection of the Festival de Cannes parallel section that's run by the Société des Réalisateurs de films (French Director's Guild) and believe that my greatest spontaneous surprise is the many "new" unexpected films that made the selection.

Before getting into the selection  lets review what has been going on with this Cannes parallel section before today's announcement.

The Poster

For starters we have the magnificent poster that showcases a photography by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide with the outstanding composition of a sign she did in Italy.  What seems like a part of the sign reads "Sogno" which means Dream in English and definitively is a word many of us associate to cinema and now, thanks to this poster, to the most famous Directors' Fortnight.

Here is the copy/paste of what Waintrop says about the poster.

"To be transported by a dream is one of the things the cinema does best. Even in lockstep with the harshest reality, when it is dramatic even tragic, cinema takes us out of our context - just as this poster, built around a superb image by the great Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, does. Portraitist of the world, she has for decades transported us from paradise to purgatory and back, and transformed our world with her eye.
In Italy, she captured this sign, Sogno, dream, which is worth a program, the one we hope for the Directors’ Fortnight.
Come dream with us... "
Édouard Waintrop
Artistic Director of the Directors’ Fortnight

La Carrose d'Or 

As we already know this year the SRF will honor Werner Herzog with the Carrose d'Or and among the different events to commemorate the occasion, on May 18th there will be a tribute that includes the screening of Bad Lieutenant: Por of Call New Orleans, a conversation with Herzog as well as the promotion of the book by Hervé Aubron and Emmanuel Burdeau, Werner Herzog, pas à pas.

The Factory

The Quinzaine is also hosting the 4th edition of its talent development initiative The Factory, which this year is focused on emerging directors from Lebanon. So there will be One Country, 8 directors, 6 nationalities, 4 short films and one feature film to open the 2017 Director's Fortnight in Cannes.

The following are the 8 directors that in couples will produce the four short films:

Ahmad Ghossein (Lebanon) & Lucie La Chimia (France)
Mounia Akl (Lebanon) & Ernesto Vilalobos (Costa Rica)
Rami Kodeih (Lebanon) & Una Gunjak (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Shirin Abu Shaqra (Lebanon) & Manuel Maria Almereyda Perrone (Switzerland)

To the right is The Lebanon Factory poster with artwork by renowned Lebanese artist Nada Sehnaoui and design by Mike Malajalian.

If you wish to learn more about The Lebanon Factory go to their official facebook page here.  Have to confess that I'm still (after reading all about the Factory) what the "one feature film" is all about as today we learned the film that will open la Quinzaine and definitively is not related to The Lebanon Factory.