Festival Predictions

2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer

Published on April 14, 2013

#12. Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer

Gist: Based on the French graphic novel by Benjamin Legrand and Jacques Lob, Snowpiercer is set in a future where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an ice age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system evolves on the train, but a revolution brews.

Prediction: The last three films to have Bong’s name stamped in the directors credit – The Host, Tokyo!, and Mother – have screened in Cannes, and this one will, too. While Bong has certainly earned an upgrade to a Competition slot, we wonder if this project is too much of a blockbuster to mind up there. Given its genre roots and scale, an Out of Competition or Midnight Screening slot might be the most likely scenario. Wherever it is, though, we’ll be one of the first in line.

Related Topics:2013 Cannes Film Festival, Bong Joon-ho, Snowpiercer

Blake Williams

Blake Williams is an avant-garde filmmaker born in Houston, currently living and working in Toronto. He recently entered the PhD program at University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute, and has screened his video work at TIFF (2011 & '12), Tribeca (2013), Images Festival (2012), Jihlava (2012), and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Blake has contributed to IONCINEMA.com's coverage for film festivals such as Cannes, TIFF, and Hot Docs. Top Films From Contemporary Film Auteurs: Almodóvar (Talk to Her), Coen Bros. (Fargo), Dardennes (Rosetta), Haneke (Code Unknown), Hsiao-Hsien (Flight of the Red Balloon), Kar-wai (Happy Together), Kiarostami (Where is the Friend's Home?), Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE), Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), Van Sant (Last Days), Von Trier (The Idiots)