2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Gist: Un Certain Regard Cannes Jury Prize winner in 2000 with Songs from the Second Floor, Swedish director Roy Andersson’s last film, the scrumptiously titled A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence will carry an aesthetic and absurdest tone that the filmmaker describes as “simply a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy about us.” Featuring Holger Andersson and Nisse Vestblom as a pair of world-weary men on a sales trip selling joke items provide an insight into a chaotic world of the present, past and future; a world of dreams and fantasies.

Prediction: Bet your bottom dollar – a Cannes film festival premiere will be the lieu of the film’s world premiere, but if we consider the lengthy, methodical process he employs (the average production span for a Roy Andersson feature film is four years and he works without a standard screenplay), we might not be seeing the closing portion of the trilogy until 2013 (filming was announced for late 2010). We’re hopeful that the Swede wants to get an early jump on the novel writing portion of his career, and that his foray into the digital format (for feature filmmaking) might accelerate the process, hence make for a showing this year. His previous two were shown in the Un Certain Regard, but for his farewell film, we can expect a graduation to the Main Comp category.