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| Robin Campillo's Enzo will open the section Photo: Mk2 Films |
After Cantet’s death Campillo stepped in and finished shoot at La Ciotat in the South of France. The narrative follows the tale of a 16-year-old boy who breaks out from his bourgeois family and starts an apprenticeship as a stonemason. He also meets and starts a relationship with a Ukrainian colleague who turns his world upside down.
The two young leads are played by newcomers Eloy Pohu and Maksym Slivinskyi who are joined in the cast by established names Elodie Bouchez and Piefrancesco Favino.
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| Sorry, Baby Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute |
In an effusive preamble to the announcement of the official selection in Paris today artistic director Julien Rejl said: “It is quite simply the most beautiful French film we’ve seen this year and Robin Campillo is among the greatest contemporary directors alive today.”
The selection of 18 features include eight by first time directors. Rejl added: ““First features were very impressive and we were thrilled to receive so many films from female directors that were daring and surprising.”
The Fortnight always includes a strong French-language section, headlined for this 57th edition by The Girls We Want set in a summer camp in Marseille by debut director Prïncia Car. The theme of pressures around masculinity in youngsters is taken up by a Belgian entry Wild Foxes by Valery Carnoy, set in a sports obsessed boarding school.
Asian cinema finds a focus with two first feature: Yuiga Danzuka’s family-focused Brand New Landscape and Jinghao Zhou’s Chinese thriller Girl On Edge while Iraqi director and writer Hasan Hadi makes his debut with The President’s Cake set in the country during rule of Saddam Hussein.
The mix also includes Lee Sang-il who offers melodrama Kokuho, based on the successful Japanese novel while German filmmaker Christian Petzold makes a Cannes debut with Miroirs No.3 with Paula Beer playing an aspiring pianist whose boyfriend is killed in a car accident and upturns her life.
Australian horror master Sean Byrne serves up Dangerous Animals, a genre piece about a surfer and a shark-obsessed serial killer. Julia Kowalski’s Que Ma Volonté Soir Faite also is a genre offering about a woman under a hereditary curse.
On the lighter side is Antony Cordier’s French comedy The Party’s Over with Laurent Lafitte (also in Cannes as the master of ceremonies at the opening and closing gala) and also featuring Laure Calamy while Canada is represented by a bilingual romantic comedy Peak Everything.
Eva Victor’s debut feature Sorry Baby which premiered in Sundance and deals with a woman coping with trauma, has been chosen as the closing film on 24 May and stars Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Louis Cancelmi and Kelly McCormack as well as the director herself.
- Enzo, Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo – opening film
- Peak Everything, Anne Émond
- Brand New Landscape, Yuiga Danzuka
- Middle Class, Anthony Cordier
- Dangerous Animals, Sean Byrne
- The Foxes Round, Valéry Carnoy
- The Girl In The Snow, Louise Hémon
- The Girls We Want, Prïncia Car
- Girl On Edge, Jinghao Zhou
- Indomptables, Thomas Ngijol
- Kokuho, Lee Sang-il
- Lucky Lu, Lloyd Lee Choi
- Militantropos, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi
- Miroirs N°3, Christian Petzold
- La Mort N’existe Pas, Félix Dufour-Laperrière
- The President’s Cake, de Hasan Hadi
- Que Ma Volonté Soit Faite, Julia Kowalski
- Sorry, Baby, Eva Victor – closing film
