After Cannes Film Festival announced its main lineup last week, the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sidebars have unveiled their slates. Now in its 55th edition, Directors’ Fortnight features Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, In Our Day, while Sean Price Williams’ The Sweet East, Michel Gondry’s The Book of Solutions, Bertrand Mandico’s She Is Conann, and more.
“The Directors’ Fortnight was born when a community of directors came together with the desire to create an independent space that would encourage the emergence of free filmmaking regardless of geographical provenance or any other limiting criteria,” said Julien Rejl, Artistic Director of the Directors’ Fortnight. “At the heart of the creation of the Directors’ Fortnight was the singular quality of a work of art and the impossibility of pigeonholing it. We have chosen to present 30 films to you which, through their own unique language, embody a spirit of resistance to any form of ideology and to dominant narratives.”
As for the new Hong Sangsoo feature, starring Ki Joobong and Kim Minhee, here’s a synopsis: “A woman in her early 40s, is temporarily living at the home of a friend, who is raising a cat. Another person, a man in his 70s living alone, had his cat die of old age. Today each of them had a visitor — a woman in her 20s for the woman, and a man in his 30s for the old man. Both visitors came with serious questions to ask. The woman answered them rather briefly while standing up, while the old man ended up giving longer answers in an extended conversation. Both of them had ramyun for lunch in front of their guests, and coincidentally enough, they both added hot pepper paste to their ramyun. It’s not a very common thing to add hot pepper paste to ramyun.…”
Check out the lineups below.
Directors’ Fortnight Feature Films
AL ABRAÃO (Val Abraham / Abraham’s Valley)
by Manoel de Oliveira
Special screening
LE PROCÈS GOLDMAN (The Goldman Case)
by Cédric Kahn
Opening film
AGRA
by Kanu Behl
L’AUTRE LAURENS (The Other Laurens)
by Claude Schmitz
BÊN TRONG VỎ KÉN VÀNG (Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell)
by Thien An Pham
First feature film
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY (Merle merle mûre)
by Elene Naveriani
BLAZH (Grace / La Grâce)
by Ilya Povolotsky
First feature film
CONANN (She Is Conann)
by Bertrand Mandico
CREATURA
by Elena Martín Gimeno
DÉSERTS
by Faouzi Bensaïdi
IN FLAMES
by Zarrar Kahn
First feature film
LÉGUA
by Filipa Reis & João Miller Guerra
LE LIVRE DES SOLUTIONS (The Book of Solutions)
by Michel Gondry
MAMBAR PIERRETTE
by Rosine Mbakam
RIDDLE OF FIRE (Conte de feu)
by Weston Razooli
First feature film
THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED
by Joanna Arnow
First feature film
THE SWEET EAST
by Sean Price Williams
UN PRINCE (A Prince)
by Pierre Creton
XIAO BAI CHUAN (A Song Sung Blue)
by Zihan Geng
First feature film
WOO-RI-UI-HA-RU (In Our Day)
by Hong Sang-soo
Closing film
Directors’ Fortnight Short Films
AXXAM YAṚƔA, MAQAṚ ANSAḤMU (The House Is on Fire, Might as Well Get Warm / La maison brûle, autant se réchauffer)
by Mouloud Aït Liotna
DANS LA TÊTE UN ORAGE (A Storm Inside)
by Clément Pérot
IL COMPLEANNO DI ENRICO (The Birthday Party / L’Anniversaire d’Enrico)
by Francesco Sossai
J’AI VU LE VISAGE DU DIABLE (I Saw the Face of the Devil)
by Julia Kowalski
LEMON TREE
by Rachel Walden
MARGARETHE 89
by Lucas Malbrun
MAST-DEL
by Maryam Tafakory
OYU
by Atsushi Hirai
THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY
by Faris Alrjoob
XIA RI FU BEN (Talking to the River)
by Yue Pan
Critics’ Week Lineup (via MUBI)
COMPETITION – FEATURES
Power Alley (Lillah Halla)
Il pleut dans la maison (Paloma Sermon-Daï)
Inshallah A Boy (Amjad Al Rasheed)
Jam (Jason Yu)
Lost Country (Vladimir Perisič)
Le ravissement (Iris Kaltenbäck)
Tiger Stripes (Amanda Nell Eu)
SPECIAL SCREENINGS – FEATURES
The (Exp)erience Of Love (Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni)
Vincent Must Die (Stéphan Castang)
OPENING FILM
Ama Gloria (Marie Amachoukeli)
CLOSING FILM
No Love Lost (Erwan Le Duc)