2013 Cannes Film Festival - Day 8 Roundup

© FDC

• Day 8 - Wednesday, May 22
  
  Recap of the eighth day of the 66th Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes), which runs until Sunday May 26, 2013.
  
  Screening In Competition today:
  
  
  • From Denmark, Only God Forgives by Nicolas Winding Refn.
    
    2011 Best Director winner for Drive returns with his second consecutive film selected to the main competition.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Julian, an American fugitive from justice, runs a boxing club in Bangkok as a front for his drug business.
    His mother, the head of a vast criminal organization, arrives from the US to collect the body of her favorite son, Billy. Julian’s brother has just been killed after having savagely murdered a young prostitute. Crazy with rage and thirsty for vengeance she demands the head of the murderers from Julian.
    But first, Julian must confront Chang, a mysterious retired policeman - and figurehead of a divine justice - who has resolved to scourge the corrupt underworld of brothels and fight clubs.

  • From Chad, Grigris by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun.
    
    2010 Jury Prize winner for A Screaming Man.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Despite a paralyzed leg that could have barred most avenues, Grigris, 25 year old, dreams of being a dancer. A challenge. But his dreams are dashed when his uncle falls critically ill. To save him, Grigris resolves to work for petrol traffickers...

  In the Un Certain Regard section:
  
  
  • From Mexico and Spain, La Jaula De Oro by Diego Quemada-Diez.
    
    Competing for the Camera d'Or with his first feature film.
    
    Official Synopsis:

    Juan, Sara and Samuel, all 15 years old, flee from Guatemala towards the USA. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil indian who does not speak Spanish and has no official documents. They all believe they will find a better world beyond the USA-Mexico border but they run into a harsh reality.

  • From Kurdistan, My Sweet Pepper Land by Hiner Saleem.
    
    His ninth feature.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Baran, a Kurdish independence war hero, resolves to accept a position in a godforsaken village at the borders of Iran and Turkey, an illegal trafficking Mecca.
    There he meets Govend, a beautiful young woman who has come to work as the teacher in the newly-opened school despite her twelve brothers' hostility to the idea.

2013 Cannes Film Festival - Day 7 Roundup

Claude Debussy Theatre © FDC

• Day 7 - Tuesday, May 21
  
  We're now past the half way mark of the festival, with only ten Competition films left including today's pair. Yesterday's films were universally bashed by the critics, let's hope today's lineup fares better.
  
  Here's a recap of the seventh day of the 66th Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes), which runs until Sunday May 26, 2013.
  
  Screening In Competition today:
  
  
  • From the USA, Behind the Candelabra by Steven Soderbergh.
    
    The previous Palme d'Or winner with his 'final' film as a director.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Before Elvis, before Elton John, Madonna and Lady Gaga, there was Liberace: virtuoso pianist, outrageous entertainer and flamboyant star of stage and television. Liberace lived lavishly and embraced a lifestyle of excess both on and off stage. In summer 1977, handsome young stranger Scott Thorson walked into his dressing room and, despite their age difference and seemingly different worlds, the two embarked on a secretive five-year love affair.

  • From Italy, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) by Paolo Sorrentino.
    
    This is his fifth time in the main competition at Cannes.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Aristocratic ladies, social climbers, politicians, high-flying criminals, journalists, actors, decadent nobles, prelates, artists and intellectuals - whether authentic or presumed - form the tissue of these flaky relationships, all engulfed in a desperate Babylon which plays out in the antique palaces, immense villas and most beautiful terraces in the city? They are all there, and they are not seen in a good light? Jep Gambardella, 65, indolent and disenchanted, his eyes permanently imbued with gin and tonic, watches this parade of hollow, doomed, powerful yet depressed humanity. A moral lifelessness enough to make one’s head spin? And in the background, Rome in summer. Splendid and indifferent, like a dead diva?

  In the Un Certain Regard section:
  
  
  • From Canada, Sarah Préfère la Course (Sarah Prefers To Run) by Chloé Robichaud.
    
    Competing for the Camera d'Or with her first feature film.
    
    Official Synopsis:

    Sarah is a gifted young middle-distance runner. Her life changes when she’s offered admission to Quebec’s best university athletics program, in Montreal - far from her suburban Quebec City home. Sarah doesn’t have her mother’s financial support for the move, or any support at all: her mother worries that leaving will be bad for Sarah’s health and life. But Sarah is stubborn, and moves to Montreal anyway, with her friend Antoine. Though barely out of their teens, they get married because they want the best scholarships and loans. Marriage turns out to be completely different from what the naïve 20-year-olds expected. Sarah doesn’t want to hurt anyone with the choices she makes, it’s just that she loves running more than anything else.

  • From France, Les Salauds (Bastards) by Claire Denis.
    
    A film many expected to appear in the main competition.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Captain on a container-ship, Marco Silvestri is called urgently back to Paris. His sister, Sandra, is desperate… her husband has committed suicide, the family business has gone under, her daughter has gone adrift. Sandra accuses the powerful businessman, Edouard Laporte responsible. Marco moves into the building where Laporte’s mistress lives with his son.
    What Marco hadn’t foreseen are Sandra’s shameful, secret manœuvres… and his love for Raphaëlle which could ruin everything.

  • From Argentina, Wakolda by Lucía Puenzo.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Patagonia, 1960. A German physician meets an Argentinean family and follows them on the long desert road to Bariloche where Eva, Enzo and their three children are going to open a lodging house by the Nahuel Huapi lake. This model family reawakens his obsession with purity and perfection, in particular Lilith, a 12 year-old with a body too small for her age. Unaware of his true identity, they accept him as their first guest. They are all gradually won over by this charismatic man, by his elegant manners, his scientific knowledge and his money — until they discover they are living with one of the biggest criminals of all times.

2013 Cannes Film Festival - Day 6 Roundup

© FDC

• Day 6 - Monday, May 20
  
  Recap of the sixth day of the 66th Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes), which runs until Sunday May 26, 2013.
  
  Screening In Competition today:
  
  
  • From Japan, Wara No Tate 藁の楯 (Shield of Straw) by Takashi Miike.
    
    The second appearance in the main competition for this prolific director.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    "Kill Kunihide Kiyomaru, and I will pay you 1 billion Yen". This is the ad placed in all the main newspapers in Japan. In placing the ad, the powerful multi-billionnaire Ninagawa puts an irresistible price on the head of the man he believes to be his granddaughter's killer. Realising he has become a target for millions of people, Kiyomaru turns himself in at the Fukuoka Police Station. Four officers are dispatched to bring Kiyomaru back to Tokyo, risking their own life, but now any number of assassins lie in wait on the 1.200km journey. The trip becomes a hellish chase, with potential killers at every turn. Will the police get Kiyomaru to Tokyo to face justice, or will justice of a different nature prevail?

  • From France, Un Château en Italie (A Castle in Italy) by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
    
    Making her Cannes debut with her third feature film. Also the only female director in the main competition this year.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Louise meets Nathan, her dreams resurface. It's also the story of her ailing brother, their mother, and the destiny of a leading family of wealthy Italian industrialists. The story of a family falling apart, a world coming to an end and love beginning.

  In the Un Certain Regard section:
  
  
  • From Palestine, Omar by Hany Abu-Assad.
    
    Official Synopsis:

    Omar is accustomed to dodging surveillance bullets to cross the separation wall to visit his secret love Nadia. But occupied Palestine knows neither simple love nor clear-cut war. On the other side of the wall, the sensitive young baker Omar becomes a freedom fighter who must face painful choices about life and manhood. When Omar is captured after a deadly act of resistance, he falls into a cat-and-mouse game with the military police. Suspicion and betrayal jeopardize his longtime trust with accomplices and childhood friends Amjad and Tarek, Nadia’s militant brother. Omar’s feelings quickly become as torn apart as the Palestinian landscape. But it’s soon evident that everything he does is for his love of Nadia.

  • From the USA, As I Lay Dying by James Franco.
    
    Official Synopsis:
    

    Based on the acclaimed novel by William Faulkner, AS I LAY DYING follows a family through their turmoil-filled journey to bring their mother to her gravesite.