Two British directors among regulars in competition at Cannes

Confirming the old adage that the best way to get your new feature into the Cannes Film Festival is to have screened an earlier film there, the selectors have published a list of twenty directors in competition next month, all of whom have had films selected in at least one of the strands at Cannes before.

For Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake will be his fifteenth feature to have played in one of the competitive selections at Cannes, among them, Jimmy’s Hall, The Angels’ Share, Looking For Eric and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which won the Palme d’Or in 2006.

Andrea Arnold's American Honey is her 3rd film in the Official Competition in Cannes
Andrea Arnold’s American Honey is her 3rd film in the Official Competition in Cannes

And fellow British director Andrea Arnold, whose first short film Wasp won the Oscar, has already won the Jury Prize twice at Cannes, for Red Road and Fish Tank. She’s back this year with her first feature shot outside the UK, American Honey.

The American director Jim Jarmusch has been in the running for the Palme d’Or six times before – in addition to his seventh shot at the top prize at Cannes, Jarmusch has, unusually, had two films selected in the same year;  Paterson is in the competition, while Gimme Danger is one of the festival’s two Midnight Screenings.

Julieta will be Pedro Almodóvar’s fifth film in the Official Competition – he’s won Best Director for All About My Mother, and Best Screenply for Volver, but never the festival’s top prize.

This year’s selection includes Bacalaureat, from the 2007 Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu, who’s had another film in each of the Official Competition and the Un Certain Regard strand in the meantime. Fellow Romanian Cristi Puiu has had two previous films in Un Certain Regard, winning the prize in 2005 for The Death of Mr Lazarescu.

For Belgium’s Dardennes Brothers, who’ve won the Palme d’Or twice, this will be their seventh film in the Official Competition.

Four French directors will be returning to Cannes. Personal Shopper will be the fifth film in the Official Competition from Olivier Assayas. Bruno Dumont, who’s been nominated this year for Slack Bay, has been in the running for the Palme d’Or twice before. Another French director, Nicole Garcia, is also in the Official Competition for a third time, with From the Land of the Moon. And Alain Guiraudie, who won the Best Director prize in the Un Certain Regard strand with Stranger By The Lake, has moved up to the top division with Rester Vertical.

Denmark’s Nicolas Winding Refn, who won Cannes’ Best Director prize for Drive and returned with the less-loved Only God Forgives two years later will be back for his third shot at the Palme d’Or with The Neon Demon. South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is also having his third attempt at winning the Palme d’Or, with The Handmaiden following revenge thriller Old Boy and vampire chiller Thirst.

At the tender age of 27, the enfant terrible of Quebecois film, Xavier Dolan is featuring in a Cannes line-up for a fifth time, with It’s Only the End of the World, after debuting at Critics Week in 2009, having two film in Un Certain Regard, and graduating to the Official Competition in 2014, with Mommy, which won the Jury Prize.

Jeff Nichols first visited Cannes with Take Shelter winning him the Grand Prize in the Critics’ Week selection, returning in the Official Competition with Mud. Loving is this year’s entry.

Among those directors less well known outside the arthouse circuit, Brillante Mendoza, from the Philippines, has had two previous films up for the Palme d’Or and last year, featured in the Un Certain Regard strand. He’s back again this year with Ma’ Rosa.

Another competition film this year is Toni Erdmann, from Germany’s Maren Ade, who hasn’t directed a film that’s featured at Cannes before, although she produced last year’s Arabian Nights, which won plaudits in the Director’s Fortnight selection. And as a German, most of her films have premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, which would rule them out of a Cannes selection.

The Dutch veteran Paul Verhoeven’s Elle will be his second film in the running for the Palme d’Or once; the first was not the critically acclaimed foreign-language historical drama Black Book, but Basic Instinct, back in 1992.

Aquarius, from Brazil’s Kleber Mendonça Filho, will be his first feature film at Cannes, but one of his earlier short films was featured in the Director’s Fortnight.

Even Sean Penn, better known as an actor than a director, was nominated for the Palme d’Or with The Pledge, in 2001. This year, he’s back with The Last Face.

Out of Competition, Cannes audiences will also be able to see another returning director, Woody Allen, opening the festival, and there’ll also be new films by Jodie Foster, Shane Black and Steven Spielberg, whose hotly-anticipated BFG will be receiving its World Premiere at the festival.

 THE FULL RUN-DOWN OF THE OFFICIAL SELECTION AT CANNES 2016

Opening Film
Woody ALLEN (USA) CAFÉ SOCIETY
 IN COMPETITION
Maren ADE (Germany) TONI ERDMANN
Pedro ALMODÓVAR (Spain) JULIETA
Andrea ARNOLD (United-Kingdom) AMERICAN HONEY
Olivier ASSAYAS (France) PERSONAL SHOPPER
Jean-Pierre DARDENNE, Luc DARDENNE (Belgium) LA FILLE INCONNUE
Xavier DOLAN (Canada) JUSTE LA FIN DU MONDE

(IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD)

Bruno DUMONT (France) MA LOUTE

(SLACK BAY)

Nicole GARCIA (France) MAL DE PIERRES
Alain GUIRAUDIE (France) RESTER VERTICAL
Jim JARMUSCH (USA) PATERSON
Kleber MENDONÇA FILHO (Brazil) AQUARIUS
Ken LOACH (United-Kingdom) I, DANIEL BLAKE
Brillante MENDOZA (Philippines) MA’ ROSA
Cristian MUNGIU (Romania) BACALAUREAT
Jeff NICHOLS (USA) LOVING
PARK Chan-Wook (South Korea) AGASSI
(THE HANDMAIDEN)
Sean PENN (USA) THE LAST FACE
Cristi PUIU (Romania) SIERANEVADA
Paul VERHOEVEN (Netherlands) ELLE
Nicolas WINDING REFN (Denmark) THE NEON DEMON

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Behnam BEHZADI (Iran) VAROONEGI
(INVERSION)
BOO Junfeng (Singapore) APPRENTICE
Delphine COULIN, Muriel COULIN (France) VOIR DU PAYS
(THE STOPOVER)
Stéphanie DI GIUSTO (France) LA DANSEUSE
(THE DANCER)
1st film
Mohamed DIAB (Egypt) ESHTEBAK
(CLASH)
Michael DUDOK DE WIT (Netherlands) LA TORTUE ROUGE
(RED TURTLE)
1st film
FUKADA Kôji (Japan) FUCHI NI TATSU
(HARMONIUM)
Maha HAJ (Israel) OMOR SHAKHSIYA
(PERSONAL AFFAIRS)
1st film
Eran KOLIRIN (Israel) ME’EVER LAHARIM VEHAGVAOT
(BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS AND HILLS)
KORE-EDA Hirokazu (Japan) AFTER THE STORM
Juho KUOSMANEN (Finland) HYMYILEVÄ MIES
(THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI)
1st film
Francisco MÁRQUEZ, Andrea TESTA (Argentina) LA LARGA NOCHE DE FRANCISCO SANCTIS
(FRANCISCO SANCTIS’S LONG NIGHT)
1st film
Bogdan MIRICA (Romania) CAINI
(DOGS)
1st film
Stefano MORDINI (Italy) PERICLE IL NERO
Michael O’SHEA (USA) THE TRANSFIGURATION 1st film
Matt ROSS (USA) CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
Kirill SEREBRENNIKOV (Russia) UCHENIK
(THE STUDENT)

OUT OF COMPETITION

Shane BLACK (USA) THE NICE GUYS
Jodie FOSTER (USA) MONEY MONSTER
NA Hong-Jin (South Korea) GOKSUNG
Steven SPIELBERG (USA) DISNEY’S THE BFG

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

Jim JARMUSCH (USA) GIMME DANGER
YEON Sang-Ho (South Korea) BU-SAN-HAENG
(TRAIN TO BUSAN)

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Thanos ANASTOPOULOS (Greece)
Davide DEL DEGAN (Italy)
L’ULTIMA SPIAGGIA
(THE LAST RESORT)
Mahamat-Saleh HAROUN (Chad) HISSEIN HABRÉ, UNE TRAGÉDIE TCHADIENNE
(HISSEIN HABRÉ, A CHADIAN TRAGEDY)
Rithy PANH (Cambodia) EXIL
Albert SERRA (Spain) LA MORT DE LOUIS XIV
(LAST DAYS OF LOUIS XIV)
Paul VECCHIALI (France) LE CANCRE