Cannes selection is lukewarm on Asia

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Festival News

The Cannes Film Festival unveiled an official selection that is long on English-language films, has a mixed bag of Asia-Pacific representation and is curiously light on films from Mainland China.

As widely anticipated the main competition finds room for South Korea's HONG Sang-soo 홍상수 | 洪常秀 with Isabelle HUPPERT-starring In Another Country 다른 나라에서 and IM Sang-soo 임상수 | 林常樹 with The Taste of Money 돈의 맛. Iranian master Abbas KIAROSTAMI's latest film Like Someone in Love ライク・サムワン・イン・ラブ is a Japan-set drama made with French financial backing.

(The Asia-Pacific region can claim further credit in Killing Them Softly, a US film by New Zealander Andrew Dominick, and Virginia, US-set Lawless, by Australian-born John Hillcoat. Both films are backed in part by Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures and both appear in main competition.)

In a midnight screening section is Japanese maverick MIIKE Takashi 三池崇史's For Love's Sake 愛と誠. Presented as a special screening is 61 minute Mekong Hotel, by Thailand's former Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong "Joe" WEERASETHAKUL อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล.

The line-up in parallel section Un Certain Regard gives prominence to Miss Lovely, a drama about sleazy film-makers operating in the lower depths of Bombay's industry. It is by documentarian-turned-first-time-feature-director Ashim AHLUWALIA.

Making return trips to Cannes and also in Un Certain Regard are Japan's WAKAMATSU Koji 若松孝二 with 11.25 The Day Mishima Chose His Own Fate 11・25自決の日　三島由紀夫と若者たち, and China's LOU Ye 婁燁 with Mystery 浮城謎事 (pictured). The film is revenge drama following a divorced couple. Lou only announced the cast in Beijing in mid-March, suggesting that it may have been filmed clandestinely, although it does not appear to be an underground production. (Lou and producer NAI An 耐安 have been under a 5-year ban that was only lifted in late 2011.)

 
The Critics' Week parallel section will unveil its lineup on Mon 23 Apr. The Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Realisateurs) will announce its selection on Tue 24 Apr.

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