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Teodora Ana Mihai’s “Traffic” was named the winner of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival on Saturday. The film was written by Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” lead actor Anamaria Vartolomei.

“Traffic” focuses on Romanian immigrants in Belgium, who go from unwanted second-class citizens to very much wanted criminals, as they decide to stage a heist that will change their lives forever.

You can watch the trailer here:

“I was excited about the opportunity to work closely with Cristian Mungiu, as he was also co-producing the project. I anticipated it would be an intense and challenging experience, but I don’t shy away from challenges, as I demonstrated with [previous film] ‘La Civil,’” Mihai told Variety.

“I believe Cristian and I have always shared a similar understanding of the themes explored in this film, which camouflages...

Belgian-Romanian director Teodora Ana Mihai, who made a spectacular fiction feature debut with “La Civil,” continues to blend genres in her next film “Traffic,” where politically charged social drama meets heist movie. “Traffic” makes its world premiere as the closing film of the Warsaw Film Festival and has its Asian premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

The film’s screenplay was written by Cristian Mungiu, Palme d’Or winner for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei, who starred recently in Cannes entry “Being Maria.”

While “La Civil” fused investigative thriller and social realism, focusing on a mother’s search for her kidnapped daughter, now it’s all about Romanian immigrants in Belgium, tired of being treated as second-class citizens.

Referring to Mungiu’s involvement, Mihai tells Variety: “For me, it’s an ‘auteur’ film. I was asked to carry someone’s brainchild into existence,...

Debut fiction features by Romania’s Cristian Pascariu, Ukraine’s Valeria Sochyvets and Turkey’s Alkim Özmen are among 10 projects selected for Transilvania Pitch Stop (Tps) on June 20-21.

The international co-production platform takes place during the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj, Romania, and is part of the industry strand Ro Days.

Titles selected include Cristian Pascariu’s A Flower Is Not A Flower about an 11-year-old girl Ana who escapes from a communist Romanian orphanage into the sewers of Bucharest where she has to use her ingenuity to survive. It is a Romanian-Latvia co-production between Point Film and Riga-based Air Productions.

The Upshaws are back at it! The family comedy starring Mike Epps and Kim Fields has been renewed for a 10-episode Season 6, Netflix announced Friday.

The steamer also revealed that all six episodes of the upcoming Season 5 will debut in Spring 2024.

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Created by Regina Hicks and Wanda Sykes (who also serve...

Hans Herbots, the original director, stood down because of scheduling conflicts.

Romanian filmmaker Teodora Mihai, whose La Civil screened in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2021, will direct the feature Heysel 85, about the Heysal Stadium disaster in which 39 people died at the European football final in 1985. She takes over from original director Hans Herbots who has dropped out because of scheduling conflicts.

The project is being produced by Belgian production outfit Menuetto Films; co-founder Hans Everaert pitched the project this week at Connext, the platform where new film and TV work from Flanders and Brussels is presented to the International industry.

The 10th anniversary edition of the international co-productiom platform Transilvania Pitch Stop will kicked off at the Transylvania international film festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, this week, with ten selected projects in development, coming from first and second- time directors from Romania, Georgia, Greece, Turkey, Hungary Ukraine, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova, being pitched to producers, distributors, sales agents, representatives of film funds and other industry professionals, followed by one-to-one meetings.

“This year, 45 projects were submitted to Transylvania Pitch Stop and after a very, very long deliberation, our selection committee carefully reviewed and handpicked 10 projects for further consideration”, says Transylvania International festival’s Head of Industry Dumitrana Lupu.

The festival’s main industry event, launched in 2014 as a workshop for up-and-coming directors from Romania and Moldova, is now one of the leading co-production events aiming to foster cross-border cooperation between the Balkans and the countries from across the Black Sea region.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary as part of the industry program of the Transilvania Film Festival, the Transilvania Pitch Stop — one of the leading co-production and co-financing platforms for filmmakers from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the wider Black Sea region — will showcase 10 projects by first- and second-time directors searching for potential European partners on June 15 in the historic medieval city of Cluj.

The selection, which includes projects from eight countries, is a diverse crop that ranges from intimate personal dramas to stories casting a wider net, capturing their protagonists in the throes of historical forces.

“They are very different this year,” said Dumitrana Lupu, who took over as TIFF’s head of industry in 2022. “We have genre. We have mystery. We have some magical realism.”

For the first time, the organizers selected a documentary to pitch during Tps — “Second Line,” Ukrainian director-producer Olga Stuga’s chronicle of life since the...

There is a particular focus on comedies.

TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has selected 20 projects for its ScriptLab 2023, plus five story editors, in what it describes as the first ‘fully international’ iteration of the annual development scheme.

The 20 projects come from 20 writer-directors and eight co-writers, and have been selected from 550 submissions.

Scroll down for the full list of participants

Those selected will take part in three week-long residential modules in April, June and November; with two online modules in September and October. The participants will be divided into five groups, and tutored by script consultants Philippe Barriere, Severine Cornamusaz, Aleksandra Swierk, Marietta von Hausswolff and Gino Ventriglia.

Zeitgeist Films Announces the U.S. Theatrical Release of LA Civil, the Debut Fiction Feature by Teodora Ana Mihai Winner of the Un Certain Regard, Prize of Courage at Cannes, the “Revenge Narco-Western” Opens Friday, March 3 at Film Forum in New York City, Followed by the Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles, and Other Cities Zeitgeist …

The post Trailer and Poster: U.S. Theatrical of Cannes-Winning ‘Revenge Narco-Western’ LA Civil, Opens March 3 appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

This sounds downright captivating. Teodora Ana Mihai's Revenge Narco-Western La Civil is coming to cinemas in the U.S. starting in New York on March 3rd. Cielo’s teenage daughter, Laura, is kidnapped in Northern Mexico. Despite paying several ransoms, Laura is not returned. When the authorities offer no support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and transforms from housewife into vengeful militant. Winner of the Winner of the Un Certain Regard, Prize of Courage at Cannes,La Civil had started out as a documentary from Mihai, centered on true events surrounding a woman named Miriam Rodriguez. When I started following her, documenting her life, it soon proved a way too tricky road for an observational documentary: the region was very...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Tfl has also unveiled the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has unveiled the 20 new projects selected for its 2022 ScriptLab, and the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The ScriptLab is a nine-month scriptwriting programme involving feature films at an early stage of development. This year’s iteration focused on comedies, with eight of the 20 projects written by women.

Composed of two week-long residential workshops, one in Turin and one in Finland, as well as three online modules, the ScriptLab also feeds in to TorinoFilmLab annual industry event the Tfl Meeting.

The awards took place In Brussels for the first time in two years after pandemic hiatus.

Laura Wandel’s drama Playground and Raphaël Balboni and Ann Sirot’s comedy drama Madly In Life tied as the top winners at Belgium’s Magritte awards on Saturday (February 12).

Both features won prizes in seven categories of the awards focused on French-language Belgian films.

Madly In Life stars Jo Deseure and Jean Le Peltier as a couple dealing with the dementia of the husband’s mother.

It won best film, screenplay, actress, actor, supporting actor (for Gilles Remiche), production design and costumes.

Playground...

El norte sobre el vacío

After successfully launching her sophomore feature Las niñas bien at the Toronto Intl. Film Feature in 2018, Mexico City based filmmaker Alejandra Márquez Abella has been rocketing up the film scene first by being attached to the Netflix English biopic project A Million Miles Away, to prepping a pro-stance series for women called La Liberación, to a project inspired by her paternal grandmother called La Triste, to filming episodes of Narcos: Mexico, and finally, this July she embarked on her third feature film project titled El norte sobre el vacío. In post since October-ish, this is a Western with a mostly female that includes Juan Daniel García Treviño from I’m No Longer Here and La Civil fame.…...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Two years into the pandemic, we’re still living through a collective nightmare, a cycle of crisis/reprieve/next-wave that can be so demoralizing. All the more reason, then, to be thankful for the filmmakers who soldiered on, telling stories that helped to make things feel less bad.

What a joy it was to travel through Siberia with the protagonists of Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6 and be reminded of the sparks of chemistry we share with random passers-by in our lives. How healing it felt to see a deep, life-changing bond develop between two strangers in Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s poetic Murakami adaptation Drive My Car. And bless Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier for the bittersweet ride that is The Worst Person in the World,...

“Vera Dreams of the Sea,” Kaltrina Krasniqi’s semi-autobiographical drama about a sign-language interpreter who battles for her rights in an inheritance dispute, was awarded the Tokyo Grand Prix at the closing ceremony of the 34nd Tokyo International Film Festival on Monday. The prize is worth $30,000.

Set in Krasniqi’s native Kosovo and based on the real-life experiences of her mother, the film previously screened in Venice’s Orrizonti section.

A female-led story also claimed the second place Special Jury Prize. “La Civil,” by Romanian director Teodora Ana Mihai, is a drama about a woman who goes hunting for a daughter kidnapped by a Mexican cartel.

In the Asian Future section for films by up-and-coming Asian directors, the best film award went to “World, Northern Hemisphere,” Iranian director Hossein Tehrani’s drama about a 14-yar-old boy who supports his family following his father’s death.

The closing ceremony also saw...

Jury prizes returned this year following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Prize money totalling €125,000 was handed out to 10 films screening in this year’s Filmfest Hamburg (September 30-October 9), which saw jury prizes return following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

On Friday evening (October 8) at Hamburg’s producer awards, the jury comprising producer Martina Haubrich and directors Julian Pörksen and Arman T. Riahi presented the producers award for German cinema productions, worth €25,000, to Jonas Weydemann of Weydemann Bros for Sabrina Sarabi’s No One’s With The Calves, which had been screened in the Grosse Freiheit section.

Sarabi...

The sixth annual showcase of Flanders films and TV series features 46 feature and 27 series.

Connext, the sixth annual showcase for new work from Flanders and Brussels, is taking place online for the second time from today, Monday October 4.

The virtual edition, Re>Connext, which has pitches, work-in-progress sessions and screenings, has attracted a robust selection of international sales agents, commissioning editors, distributors, financiers, sales agents, distributors, streamers and festival programmers.

The decision to go online was taken early, in March 2021. The upside of being virtual is that the event has a far greater reach and a bigger selection, with 46 features...

Six years on, the legacy of Connext can be seen at festival awards ceremonies and in international theatrical and TV deals.

Cannes prizes, international festival plaudits and a social media thumbs up from Ricky Gervais are among the profile -raising moments enjoyed by projects that have participated in Connext, the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image in Belgium.

The event serves as an export platform for film and TV drama made in Flanders and Brussels and has been mounted virtually under the banner Re>Connext for the last two years amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite being forced online and virtual,...

Six years on, the legacy of Connext can be seen at festival awards ceremonies and in international theatrical and TV deals.

Cannes prizes, international festival plaudits and a social media thumbs up from Ricky Gervais are among the profile -raising moments enjoyed by projects that have participated in Connext, the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image in Belgium.

The event serves as an export platform for film and TV drama made in Flanders and Brussels and has been mounted virtually under the banner Re>Connext for the last two years amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite being forced online and virtual,...

A total of 46 films and 27 series will be showcased at the online-only event.

Lukas Dhont’s second feature Close and Olga Lucovnicova’s Last Letters From My Grandma are among the 46 feature and 27 series projects to be showcased at Re>Connext, the annual showcase for films and TV series made in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium.

Close is filmmaker Dhont’s follow-up to Girl, which won the Camera d’Or following its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2018. Last year, the project was pitched at Re>Connext under the title The Invisible.

For this edition, drama Close returns as a work in progress,...

A question as seemingly benign as “You’re Laura’s mother, right?” becomes the moment when Cielo’s life changes forever. The query, posed by a toothy-smiled young man, is born not out of curiosity but out of a need to make sure he’s found the right woman to extort. Even as he grins, there’s a sinister edge to his nonchalance when addressing Cielo, who slowly starts piecing together what’s afoot. Laura did not return home the night before and, as the cocksure young man soon informs her, she never will unless Cielo can come up with an exorbitant ransom fee.

What follows may well be accurately described as a revenge narco-western set in Northern Mexico. But such a synopsis risks sensationalizing the subject matter of “La Civil” and flattening its aesthetic prowess. Just as a mundane interaction kicks off a harrowing search that will leave Cielo...

The Australian city’s sixth lockdown has been extended until at least August 19.

The Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) has cancelled its in-person screenings, following the extension of the Australian city’s lockdown until at least August 19, amid growing numbers of Covid-19 cases.

The announcement comes following Sydney Film Festival’s decision to delay its festival from August to November 3-14, due to Sydney’s lockdown extension.

Miff’s in-cinema component was planned to run from August 12-22.

The festival will remain online, with streaming platform Miff Play available to audiences across Australia – alongside the extended reality programme, which will be available to audiences,...

The Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia has canceled its in-person screening component, due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the city.

After a fully online edition in 2020, the 2021 festival was scheduled to run Aug. 12-22 as a hybrid combining online and real-world elements. But on Wednesday, the premier of Victoria state Daniel Andrews announced that Melbourne will spend a further week in lockdown. The current restrictions were scheduled to end on Thursday evening, but are now extended until at least Aug. 19, 2021.

Following the cancelation of the in-person screenings Miff will operate its online streaming platform – which has been operational since last week and is available to viewers across Australia since last week, and its Extended Reality program, which is available to audiences, free, globally. Some in-person screenings that made up Miff’s regional cinema season will continue.

On Tuesday, Victoria recorded 20 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases out...

In a sad blow, the Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) has announced it will cancel its in-cinema screenings given the current Covid situation in the city.

The festival, always designed as a hybrid event, will continue nationally on Miff Play, with the festival securing an additional 30 titles for the platform. These include some direct-from-Cannes titles such as The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, La Civil, Rehana Maryam Noor and Babi Yar, and Australian films Ablaze, Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution, Little Tornadoes and Paper City.

However, some of the festival most anticipated films, including local films such as Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, intended as the Opening Night Gala, and Justin Kurzel’s Nitram are not available on the service.

As regional Victoria is no longer in lockdown, the festival’s regional season will proceed, with required changes to the line-up to be advised through local operators.

TIFF artistic director Mihai Chirilov on how the festival supports the local industry.

The Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) was co-founded by producer-director Tudor Giurgiu and film critic Mihai Chirilov in Romania’s second city of Cluj-Napoca in 2002. It rapidly became the nation’s most important film-related event and this year’s physical edition marks its 20th anniversary.

TIFF opens today (July 23) with a gala screening of Spanish director Cesc Gay’s comedy The People Upstairs on Unirii Square as part of a new collaboration with the San Sebastian film festival. The festival will run until August 1.

Artistic director Chirilov...

Ten projects in development will be presented to industry professionals during the 8th Transilvania Pitch Stop (Tps) at this year’s Transilvania Intl. Film Festival, with a hybrid pitching session on July 29 including a range of film funds, distributors, sales agents, producers and financiers both online and on-site in the host city of Cluj.

Launched in 2014 as a five-day workshop for first- and second-time directors from Romania and Moldova, the Pitch Stop expanded in 2017 to include a co-production platform with projects from neighboring countries. The program – which has become one of the leading industry confabs in the region – looks to foster cross-border collaboration while also nurturing and supporting emerging talent.

TIFF industry manager Ioana Lazareanu says the Tps’ mission is to help create “a synergy between the creative side in the industry and the business side.”

“On the one hand, obviously, [there is] the need to nurture, support and promote local talent…...

TitaneIN COMPETITIONPalme d’Or: Titane (Julia Ducournau) (Read our review)Grand Prix ex aequo: A Hero (Asgar Farhadi)Grand Prix ex aequo: Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen)Jury Prize ex aequo: Ahed's Knee (Nadav Lapid) (Read our review)Jury Prize ex aequo: Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) (Read our review)Best Director: Leos Carax (Annette)Best Actor: Caleb Landry-Jones (Nitram)Best Actress: Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World)Best Screenplay: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe (Drive My Car) (Read our review)Unclenching the FistsUN Certain REGARDGrand Prize: Unclenching the Fists (Kira Kovalenko) (Read our review)Ensemble Prize: Bonne Mere (Hafsia Herzi)Jury Prize: Great Freedom (Sebastian Meise)Courage: La Civil (Teodora Ana Mihai)Originality: Lamb (Valdimar Jóhannsson)Jury Special Mention: Prayers for the Stolen (Tatiana Huezo)Directors' FORTNIGHTEuropa Cinemas Cannes Label for Best European Film: A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano)Sacd Prize: Magnetic Beats (Vincent Maël Cardona)A ChiaraCAMERA D'ORMurina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic...

Spike Lee jumped the gun, announcing Palme d’Or winner “Titane” before the other prizes at the Cannes Film Festival awards. The unplanned goof could have robbed the awards of their usual suspense, but instead, created a thrillingly unpredictable energy as presenters and attendees alike tried to imagine how to get the train back on track and what the jury president might do next … while holding their breath for the festival’s second-ever female Palme d’Or winner to accept her prize.

With “Titane,” French director Julia Ducournau (“Raw”) delivers a radical horror vision — a portrait of a serial killer impregnated by a car who disguises her gender and goes incognito as a lonely fireman’s long-lost son — sure to make waves as it rolls out in the wider world.

Turns out, the run-of-show slip was the first of many surprises, which included two ties. When it came time for Ducournau to accept her prize,...

The final full day of screenings at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival ended with a statistic, which was delivered by Cannes General Delegate Thierry Fremaux on the stage of the Salle Debussy just before midnight on Friday:

Over the first 11 days of the festival and the thousands of Covid-19 tests administered on the premises each day, 70 people tested positive for the virus. For Fremaux and the festival, the stat – slightly more than the three-positive-tests-per-day estimate made earlier – was still one to celebrate, suggesting that the scaled-down Cannes managed to navigate a difficult time without turning into a superspreader event.

Of course, Fremaux’s announcement preceded the screening of Gaspar Noe’s “Vortex,” a movie about aging, illness and death, which perhaps made it a tricky moment to be celebrating all the negative tests.

The prize parade

According to the awards that have been handed out in Cannes, the festival’s top...

Unclenching The Fists Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival The Russian filmmaker Kira Kovalenko’s Unclenching The Fists has won the top accolade in Un Certain Regard, the sidebar section of the Cannes Festival focused this year on emerging film-makers.

The drama, which is set in a former mining town in Russia’s southern region of North Ossetia, tells the story of a young woman trying to break free from her family’s grip.

Kovalenko, who wrote and directed the film, was unable to attend the awards ceremony in person as she is on set for another film.

La Civil Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival The Icelandic horror-comedy hybrid Lamb, received a special jury prize for originality. The remaining three awards were presented to female-directed films, with French actor-turned-filmmaker Hafsia Herzi’s Marseille-set family drama Good Mother winning a prize for best ensemble performance. Rumanian director Teodora Ana Mihai...

“Unclenching The Fists,” a Russian drama directed by Kira Kovalenko, won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar competition at Cannes. And shortly after the awards were announced, the UK streamer and distributor Mubi acquired all North American rights to the film, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.

Mubi has been on a buying spree out of the festival — earlier in the week, the distributor acquired another Un Certain Regard prize winner, “Great Freedom,” as well as “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” from the main competition. Mubi also picked up the UK, Ireland, Latin America and India rights to “Unclenching the Fists.”

Awards for the Un Certain Regard were announced Friday in a ceremony at the Debussy Theatre at Cannes.

Andrea Arnold, who was also at the festival behind her documentary “Cow,” was president of the Un Certain Regard jury. She led a jury that included director Mounia Meddour,...

Cannes — At a banner ceremony for female filmmakers, Russian writer-director Kira Kovalenko’s sophomore feature “Unclenching the Fists” won the top prize for best film in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this evening.

The film, a powerful study of a young woman attempting to assert her independence in a North Ossetian mining town with a bitter legacy of violence, was one of four female-directed features to take awards from a jury headed by British director Andrea Arnold — a Cannes veteran whose first documentary, “Cow,” was unveiled in Cannes Premieres this year.

Arnold cited the “explosion of originality, physicality and feeling” in Kovalenko’s film as their primary motivation for awarding it the top prize. Shortly after the ceremony, it was announced that Mubi had picked up Kovalenko’s film for distribution in North America, the U.K. and other territories.

Arnold is noted for her...

Kira Kovalenko’s Russian drama Unclenching The Fists won the Grand Prize in Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar this year.

The film is produced by Ukranian-Russian super-producer Alexander Rodnyansky with Sergey Melkumov. Set in a former mining town in North Ossetia, the pic follows a young woman who struggles to escape the stifling hold of the family she loves as much as she rejects. Mubi has taken rights to the pic for North America, UK and Ireland, Latin America and India, the streamer said on Twitter.

Elsewhere, the jury led by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold awarded its Jury Prize to Sebastian Meise’s Austrian movie Great Freedom. Mubi also bought that movie, which is set in post-war Germany and tells the story of a man who is imprisoned time and time again for being homosexual, here in Cannes.

The Ensemble Prize went to Hafsia Herzi’s Bonne Mere.

Fund CEO Koen Van Bockstal divulges details of new treaty.

Koen Van Bockstal, the new CEO of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (Vaf), has unveiled details in Cannes of a new co-production treaty between Flanders and Jordan.

One Flemish Belgian film is already shooting in Jordan: Rebel, produced by Caviar. This is a coming-of-age story about a family torn apart over a little boy’s future. It is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (pictured), the filmmakers behind Bad Boys For Life – the top-grossing Hollywood film of last year. The Vaf is one of the major investors in the project.

It’s been a while, but for the first time since 2019, the Cannes Film Festival is officially happening on the Croisette. After being canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 Cannes Film Festival is happening right now on the French Riviera with a full slate of international features. Here’s everything to know about this year’s Cannes Film Festival, including the full lineup.

What movies are playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival?

The 2021 lineup at the Cannes Film Festival features new films from Wes Anderson, Sean Baker, Sean Penn, Leo Carax, and Tom McCarthy. But despite the usual vast pedigree of talent at Cannes, awards attention for the films that launch there is uncertain. Only twice have Palme d’Or winners subsequently won Best Picture at the Oscars (1955’s “Marty” and 2019’s “Parasite”) — although that data point could be rendered moot by the coronavirus pandemic. The...

Past winners of the first feature prize include Jim Jarmusch, Mira Nair, Naomi Kawase, Steve McQueen, Houda Benyamina and Lukas Dhont.

The Cannes Film Festival has named French actress Mélanie Thierry as jury president for the 2021 Caméra d’Or award reserved for all first features premiering across Official Selection and the parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.

”Nothing is as fragile or as miraculous as a first movie. This testifies to the courage and the faith of all the directors who, after such a long period of seclusion, succeeded in providing us with a window on the outside world,...

Selected titles to screen for buyers in Australia, Mexico, China, South Korea and Japan.

Cannes’ Marché du Film is to host physical screenings of titles from the festival’s Official Selection for industry in five key territories, all outside Europe.

With travel restrictions still in place as a result of the ongoing pandemic, the market has organised screenings in Melbourne, Mexico City, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo.

They will be reserved for buyers, distributors, streaming platforms and festival programmers and will take place on July 8, 9 and from July 12-16, the day after their official screening in Cannes.

More than 20 titles have...

Cannes' Official Selection for its 74th edition, running July 6-17.

In Competition

Annette, Leos Carax (France) - Opening Film

The Story of My Wife, Ildikó Enyedi (Hungary)

Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven (Netherlands)

Bergman Island, Mia-Hansen-Love (France)

Drive My Car, Rysuke Hamaguchi (Japan)

Ha’Berech (Ahed’s Knee), Nadav Lapid

Casablanca Beats, Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)

Compartment No. 6, Juho Kuosmanen (Finland)

The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier (Norway)

La Fracture, Catherine Corsini (France)

The Restless, Joachim Lafosse (Belgium)

Paris 13th District, Jacques Audiard (France)

Lingui, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad)

Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)

Nitram, Justin Kurzel (Australia)

France, Bruno Dumont (France)

Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia)

Red Rocket, Sean Baker (USA)

Flag Day, Sean Penn (USA)

The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson (USA)

Titane, Julia Ducournau (France)

Tre Piani, Nanni Moretti (Italy)

Tout s'est Bien Passé, François Ozon (France)

A Hero, Asghar Farhadi (Iran)

Un Certain Regard

Moneyboys, C.B. Yi (Austria)

Blue Bayou, Justin Chon (USA)

Freda, Gessica Geneus (Haiti)

Delo (House Arrest), Alexey German Jr. (Russia)

Bonne Mere, Hafsia Herzi (France)

Noche de Fuego, Tatiana Huezo (Mexico)

Lamb, Valdimar Johansson (Iceland)

Commitment Hasan, Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey)

After Yang, Kogonada (USA)

Let There Be Morning, Eran Kolirin (Israel)

Unclenching the Fists, Kira Kovalenko (Russia)

Women Do Cry, Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria)

Rehana Maryam Noor, Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Bangladesh)

Great Freedom, Sebastian Meise (Austria)

La Civil, Teodora Ana Mihai (Romania / Belgium)

Gaey’s Wa’r, Na Jiazuo (China)

The Innocents, Eskil Vogt (Norway)

Un Monde, Laura Wandel (Belgium)

Out of Competition

De Son Vivant, Emmanuelle Bercot (France)

Emergency Declaration, Han Jae-Rim (Korea)

The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes (USA)

Bac Nord, Cédric Jimenez (France)

Aline, The Voice of Love, Valérie Lemercier (France)

Stillwater, Tom McCarthy (USA)...

Cannes is back in full force with the announcement of the Official Selection for the film festival’s 74th edition. Taking place in July after having been originally scheduled for May, Cannes is returning with an in-person event after the pandemic forced the festival to cancel in 2020. Spike Lee, who was supposed to head the jury and premiere his “Da 5 Bloods” out of competition last year, is returning to Cannes 2021 as jury president. Films such as Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Leos Carax’s “Annette,” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” were all supposed to premiere at Cannes 2020 but are now confirmed for Cannes 2021 after waiting a year to be unveiled to the world.

Given this is the first Cannes in the Covid pandemic era, there are as many questions about the event’s safety protocols as there are about the lineup. Cannes general delegate Thierry Frémaux told IndieWire...