2011 Cannes Film Festival: 60 Film Predictions

The Berlin Film Festival begins today and in typical IONCINEMA.com fashion, I’ve decided to unveil my predictions for the 2011 edition of the Cannes Film Festival. I’ve taken the liberty at breaking down the predictions by what should logically fit into what sections: Main Comp, UCR and the Director’s Fortnight sidebar.

In the Main Competition category, we should see an increase in the number of titles selected (perhaps hovering around the twenty mark. We can cross out films such as Haneke’s latest, Kamen Kalev’s The Island, Raymond Depardon’s Journal de France, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s (2007’s Banishment) latest and I wouldn’t be surprised if Walter Salles’ On the Road isn’t completed on time — and in what should be a vintage year for the festival, these no-shows won’t matter. A pair that remain in limbo are the alreasy completed David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth — both could find it difficult to make the final cut. 

Along with the opener Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, in the non-competitive “Out of Competition” and “Special Screenings” selections, I figure that since Robert de Niro is he head juror that the film he made in Italy (Giovanni Veronesi’s The Ages of Love) with Monica Bellucci and Riccardo Scamarcio might get an out of competition screening. One picture that doesn’t appear to fit in the Competition category but should grab a spot is Dominik Moll’s The Monk. Other titles could come in the shape of: Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible, Antoine Charreyron’s La nuit des enfants rois, Gus Van Sant’s Restless, Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Robert Guédiguian’s The Snows of Kilmanjaro, Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma, Juan Solanas’ Upside Down and the festival would probably love the presence of Madonna’s W.E.

Predictions: Main Competition
Alps – Giorgos Lanthimos
Chicken with Plums – Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
The Deep Blue Sea – Terence Davies
L’empire – Bruno Dumont
Faust – Aleksandr Sokurov
The Grandmasters – Wong Kar-wai
Le Havre – Aki Kaurismaki
The Kid with a Bike – Dardennes Bros.
Les Bien-Aimés – Christophe Honoré
Love & Bruises – Lou Ye
Melancholia – Lars von Trier
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Paradies – Ulrich Seidl
La Piel Que Habito – Pedro Almodóvar
Prey – Brillante Mendoza
This Must Be the Place – Paolo Sorrentino
That Summer (Un Été Brûlant) – Philippe Garrel
Tree of Life – Terrence Malick
We Have A Pope – Nanni Moretti
We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsay
Wuthering Heights – Andrea Arnold

Predictions: Un Certain Regard
11 Flowers – Xiaoshuai Wang
Bird (L’Oiseau) – Yves Caumon
Café De Flore – Jean-Marc Vallée
Dau – Ilya Khrzhanovsky
Et maintenant, on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?) Nadine Labaki
L’Exercice de l’Etat (State Exercise) – Pierre Schoeller
The Exchange – Eran Kolirin
Goodbye First Love – Mia Hansen-Love
Halt auf freier Strecke – Andreas Dresen
* Headshot – Pen-ek Ratanaruang (See Pic Below)

* House of Tolerance (L’Apollonide) Bertrand Bonello
I Wish – Hirokazu Kore-eda
Loverboy – Cătălin Mitulescu
Of Women and Horses – Patricia Mazuy
Play – Ruben Östlund
Simon Killer – Antonio Campos
Sleeping Beauty – Julia Leigh
Whore’s Glory – Michael Glawogger

Predictions: Director’s Fortnight
Alois Nebel – Tomas Lunak
Les Amants – Nicolas Klotz
Babycall – Pål Sletaune
Beirut Hotel – Danielle Arbid
Bye Bye Blondie Virginie Despentes
Les Chants de Mandrin – Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche
Crazy Horse – Frederick Wiseman
The Fairy – Dominique Abel, Bruno Romy, Fiona Gordon
* For Ellen – So Yong Kim (Pic above)
Keyhole – Guy Maddin
Last Winter – John Shank
* The Loneliest Planet – Julia Loktev (Pic below)

Magic Valley – Jaffe Zinn
Meteora – Spiros Stathoulopoulos
Mike – Lars Blumers
Oslo, 31. august Joachim Trier
Postcards from the Zoo – Edwin
Saya Samurai – Hitoshi Matsumoto
Sons of Norway – Jens Lien
Sponsoring – Malgoska Szumowska
Tue-Moi (Kill Me) Emily Atef