Oscar-winning Iranian added to Cannes 2016 line-up

With less than three weeks to go to the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival, the organisers have announced a number of new films to be screened as part of the various selections.

Asghar Farhadi's The Past was nominated for the Palme d'Or in 2013
Asghar Farhadi’s The Past was nominated for the Palme d’Or in 2013

Asghar Farhadi, who collected a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for A Separation, has been added to the Official Competition for his new film, The Salesman. With his previous film, The Past, having been nominated for the Palme d’Or in 2013, his selection ensures that every single director selected to compete for one of the most prestigious prizes in the film calendar has had an earlier film screened in one of the acknowledged strands during an earlier Cannes Film Festival.

The British director David Mackenzie will now be screening his next feature, Hell or High Water, in the Un Certain Regard strand, which is usually regarded as being more art-house or offbeat.

The programmers have also added the drugs thriller Blood Father, starring Mel Gibson and Diego Luna, to its Midnight Screenings programme.

The Festival says the additions are films that were seen for the first time after the earlier announcement of the initial line-up, highlighting at the top level of the industry, deadlines are no bar to having a film considered for inclusion.