The Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section will be previewed by the Filmofilia staff, featuring titles from Laetitia Dosch, Rungano Nyoni, and Runar Runarsson. The festival is scheduled to take place from May 14 to May 25.
Dog On Trial
(Fr-Switz) Directed by Laetitia Dosch, known for her previous work including Montparnasse Bienvenue (2017) and Acid (2023). Dosch co-writes, directs and stars in this tale of an idealistic lawyer who agrees to defend a dog that has bitten three people, leading to the first canine trial in history. The courtroom comedy boasts a starry local cast including Francois Damiens, Jean-Pascal Zadi, Anne Dorval and Pierre Deladonchamps, and aims to raise questions about human-animal relationships and the role of women in society. It is produced by France's L'Atelier de Production and Switzerland's Bande à Part Films.
Holy Cow
(Fr) Young filmmaker Louise Courvoisier will unveil her first feature film, Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux) at the Cannes Film Festival 2024. Selected in the Un Certain Regard section, it will star Clément Favreau, Luna Garret and Mathis Bernard.
Debut feature director Courvoisier returns to Cannes having won the 2019 Cinéfondation first prize with her circus-themed short Mano A Mano. With a cast of newcomers headed by Clément Favreau, Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux) is about a teenage hellraiser in France's Jura region who has to mend his ways and decides to do it by creating a prize-winning cheese. Muriel Meynard produces for Agat Films — Ex Nihilo, with Pyramide selling internationally and distributing in France.
Le Royaume
(Fr) Corsican director Julien Colonna will be in competition with his debut film Le Royaume in the Un Certain Regard selection at Cannes 2024.
Colonna made his mark with 2015 short Confession before establishing himself with TV series Brutal and Gloria. Co-scripted with Jeanne Herry (director of All Your Faces), Colonna's debut feature is set in the 1990s in his native Corsica. A local cast is headed by newcomer Ghjuvanna Benedetti, playing a teenage girl on the run with her father during a gang war. Producers are Hugo Sélignac and Antoine Lafon for Chi-Fou-Mi, the company also behind the festival's opening film The Second Act. Ad Vitam releases in France.
The Story Of Souleymane
(Fr) L'Histoire de Souleymane is Boris Lojkine‘s new film. Back at the festival 10 years after his 2014 feature Hope won the SACD award in Critics' Week, the French director brings another story of the African diaspora in Europe. Abou Sangare makes his acting debut as a Guinean food delivery man who has two days to fabricate a story for his asylum application interview in Lyon. Lojkine penned the script with Inshallah A Boy writer Delphine Agut while Bruno Nahon produces on behalf of Unité, with support from CNC, Indéfilms, La Banque Postale Image and SofiTVciné.
Norah
(Saudi) Un Certain Regard, the prestigious selection of the Cannes Film Festival that highlights young cinema in full formal search, has selected Norah, the new film by Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi.
The film is set in a remote village in 90s Saudi Arabia, where Norah spends most of her time away from the village. Now she has to step out of her world to get what she wants, after discovering that Nader is more than just a new teacher in the village.
“It's a film about deserts, sand, landscapes, but also the story of a teacher and a young girl, Norah…” punctuated Thierry Frémaux half-heartedly on April 11, when he announced the selection of Tawfik Alzaidi's film in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes 2024 Festival.
This film fromSaudi Arabia stars Yagoub Alfarhan, Maria Bahrawi and Aixa Kay. Please wait a little longer to find out more about this new feature film.
Santosh
(UK-Fr-India-Ger) Indian director Sandhya Suri presents Santosh, her new film, in the Un Certain Regard selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2024. Suri's debut narrative feature is the latest in a run of Croisette trips for producer Mike Goodridge, having co-produced 2022 Palme d'Or winner Triangle Of Sadness and produced 2023 Competition title Club Zero. Suri's neo-noir stars Shahana Goswami as a widow turned police constable in rural northern India. Goodridge and James Bowsher produce through Good Chaos, alongside Balthazar de Ganay and Alan McAlex of Suitable Pictures. The co-producers are Razor Film and Haut et Court, while BFI, BBC Film, ZDF/ARTE and CNC are backers.
Armand
(Nor-Swe-Neth) Director: Halfdan Ullmann Tondel. This debut feature directed by the grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann stars Renate Reinsve, last in Cannes as the best actress winner for 2021's The Worst Person In The World. Tondel wrote the original story about a woman called into a school meeting about an accusation involving her six-year-old son, which spirals out of control. Tondel's award-winning shorts include Bird Hearts and Fanny. Producer Andrea Berentsen Ottmar of Eye Eye Pictures was at Cannes in 2021 with The Worst Person In The World and in 2022 with Sick Of Myself. Joachim Trier is one of the exec producers.
September Says
(Ire-UK-Ger) Greek-French filmmaker Ariane Labed has graced Cannes as an actress in The Souvenir: Part II and The Lobster, and as a director with 2019 short Olla. She returns with her feature directing debut, an adaptation of Daisy Johnson's gothic novel Sisters. Two sisters and their mother venture to the Irish countryside, where they face a series of surreal encounters. Mia Tharia, Pascale Kann and Rakhee Thakrar star in the film, which is a co-production between Sackville Film and TV Productions, Crybaby Films and The Match Factory Productions, in association with Element Pictures. Backers include Screen Ireland, BBC Film and the UK Global Screen Fund.
When The Light Breaks
(Ice-Neth-Cro-Fr) When the light breaks, Rúnar Rúnarsson ‘s fourth feature film, will have the honor of opening Un Certain Regard, one of the Cannes 2024 Festival's parallel selections, which spotlights young cinema from all over the world.
When the light rises on a long summer's day in Reykjavik, Iceland. From one sunset to the next, Una, a young art student, encounters love, friendship, grief and beauty. Elín Hall stars in this Icelandic film.
This is not the Icelandic director ‘s first appearance at Cannes. He presented his first feature, Volcano, at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes in 2011, while his third film, ECHO, was selected for the festival's L'Atelier, which helps some 15 young directors finance their next film each year.
Flow
(Latvia-Fr-Belg) Gints Zilbalodis‘s animated film Flow joins the Un Certain Regard selection at Cannes 2024. Zilbalodis created a number of animated shorts ahead of debut feature Away, which enjoyed a strong festival run in 2019 before theatrical releases in multiple territories including the US, France and UK. Second animated feature Flow, co-written with Matiss Kaza, tells the story of a cat who wakes up in a flooded world and must overcome his fear of water. Kaza's Riga-based Dream Well Studio produces alongside France's Sacrebleu Productions and Belgium's Take Five.
Niki
(Fr) French actress Céline Sallette makes her feature directing debut with a film about 20th-century artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The film is a biopic of Niki de Saint Phalle, played by Charlotte Le Bon. The Quebec actress is joined by Damien Bonnard, John Robinson (IV) and Judith Chemla. Paris 1952, Niki has settled in France with her husband and daughter, far from a stifling America and family. But despite the distance, Niki is regularly shaken by reminiscences of her childhood that invade her thoughts. From the hell she's about to discover, Niki finds in art a weapon to free herself.
“Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle, renamed Niki by her mother at the age of four, decided to devote herself fully to art in 1953. Joining the Nouveaux Réalistes group – which included Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, whom she married for the second time in 1971 – Niki de Saint Phalle produced her first Tirs tableaux-performances in 1961, and began creating her famous feminist Nanas sculptures in glued paper and resin in 1964, before working from the 1970s on monumental installation projects such as the Tarot Garden in Italy and the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris… In 1972, she made the experimental film Daddy in collaboration with director Peter Whitehead. “Unifrance reminds us.
The Shameless
(Switz-Fr-Bul-Tai-India) India-set drama The Shameless marks the third feature from Bulgarian writer/director Konstantin Bojanov following Avé, which premiered in Critics' Week at Cannes in 2011, and Light Thereafter, a 2017 world premiere in Rotterdam. The story of forbidden love follows two women who escape their lives as sex workers and embark on a perilous journey to freedom. It is produced by Switzerland's Akka Films, France's Urban Factory, Bulgaria's Klas Films, Taiwan's House On Fire and India's TPHQ.
Black Dog
(China) Mr. Six director Guan Hu debuts in Cannes with this drama about a former convict who forms an unlikely connection with the titular animal, as he clears stray dogs in his remote hometown on the edge of the Gobi desert before the 2008 Olympic Games. Eddie Peng, Jia Zhangke, Tong Liya and Zhang Yi lead the cast, with Liang Jing as producer. The Seventh Art Pictures, Huayi Brothers and Momo Pictures are among the backers, while Memento Films Distribution releases in France.
The Damned
(It-US-Belg-Can) Roberto Minervini‘s Les Damnés (The Damned), a historical film about the American Civil War, offers a fresh look at this period. The Damned is set in the winter of 1862, during the American Civil War. The U.S. Army sends a company of volunteers west to patrol unexplored regions. As their mission changes course, they question the meaning of their commitment. Roberto Minervini, a director renowned for his documentaries previously presented at the Cannes Film Festival, notably Le Cœur battant, signs with Les Damnés a historical film. The cast, including Jeremiah Knupp, René W. Solomon and Cuyler Ballenger, portrays these young soldiers confronted with the realities of war.
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl
(Zambia-Ire-UK) The Cannes Film Festival broadens its horizons by welcoming films from previously unexplored territories. Rungano Nyoni‘s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, a comedy-drama between Zambia and Guinea, marks a historic first for both countries in the Un Certain Regard selection. Rungano Nyoni, born in Zambia and raised in Wales, is known for her unique style that blends realism with elements of fable. Her filmography includes I Am Not a Witch (2017), which received international acclaim for its bold exploration of superstition and witchcraft in Zambia, earning her several prestigious awards and nominations.On Becoming a Guinea Fowl seems to continue in the vein of Rungano Nyoni's previous work, using elements of satire and symbolism to comment on social and cultural issues. The title itself suggests transformation or metamorphosis, themes often explored in African tales and myths. The film promises to offer a fresh look at human and gender relations in Zambia and Guinea.
My Sunshine
(Jap-Fr) Hiroshi Okuyama‘s My Sunshine, a delicate Japanese drama, finds its place there this year. This coming-of-age drama follows two children on a small Japanese island who train together as a figure-skating duo while their feelings for each other grow. It follows Okuyama's 2018 debut feature Jesus. My Sunshine is produced by Japan's Tokyo Theaters, which also distributes the film locally, The Asahi Shimbun Company (Onoda: 10,000 Nights In The Jungle) and France's Comme des Cinémas, which has credits including Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Competition title Asako I & II and Naomi Kawase's Still The Water.
Viet And Nam
(Phil-Fr-Sing-Neth-It-Ger-Viet-US) Viet And Nam, a film by Truong Minh Quý, explores the love between two miners haunted by the history of Vietnam. Nam and Việt, two miners in love, live in a coal-dependent town. Just as Nam decides to leave the country like many other young people, his late father, a soldier who died in the war, visits his mother in a dream to reveal the place of his death. Nam, his mother and Việt then head south to the old battlefield to find his father's remains. Truong Minh Quý, a promising young Vietnamese director, signs with Viet And Nam an audacious film exploring the intimate connections between an individual and an unresolved History, between reality and its reverberation. Last year, another Vietnamese-born director, Pham Thiên Ân, won the Caméra d'Or for his film L'Arbre aux Papillons d'Or, presented at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes.
The Village Next To Paradise
(Austria-Ger-Fr-Somalia) Mo Harawe‘s drama The Village Next to Paradise explores the life of a fragile family in a Somali village. In a remote village in the middle of the Somali desert, Mamargade, a single father, takes on a series of odd jobs to survive. His sister Araweelo has taken refuge in his home after a turbulent domestic dispute. The potential of Mamargade's son, Cigaal, is ignored because of the situation at the heart of this fragile family's intimacy. Mamargade and her sister trust each other, but wouldn't have chosen to live together if circumstances hadn't forced them to. The daily life of this family is inextricably linked to the socio-political situation of a country plagued by political unrest, natural disasters and the legacy of colonialism. Mo Harawe, an emerging director on the Somali film scene, signs his first feature film with The Village Next to Paradise. The film stars Axmed Cali Faarax, Canab Axmed Ibraahin and Cigaal Maxamuud Saleebaan, talented actors representing the new generation of Somali cinema.
As the Cannes Film Festival approaches, cinephiles and enthusiasts alike are in for a treat, with a lineup that guarantees a blend of artistry, emotion, and storytelling. Which film from the Un Certain Regard selection are you most excited to watch?
