Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2021: #76. Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub My Love: Canto Due

Mektoub My Love: Canto Due

Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2019 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo which premiered in comp at Cannes to divisive responses and widespread critical consternation (and again, found the director at troubling odds due to the treatment of his female lead, which Kechiche cites as a conspiracy smear campaign). Nevertheless, as the title of his past two Mektoub films would indicate, we have always been destined for a Mektoub My Love: Canto Due. While Intermezzo waits for its theatrical premiere in France, potentially a different, edited version of what was seen at Cannes (the film apparently circulated on bootleg DVDs amongst the North-African population in France), conversations suggest Kechiche’s third chapter in the ongoing Mektoub saga is already in the can. Kechiche’s 2000 debut Poetical Refugee played at Venice Critics’ Week and he’d go on to compete for the Golden Lion three times, with 2007’s The Secret of the Grain (winning several awards), 2010’s Black Venus and 2017’s Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno. His breakthrough first came with 2003’s Games of Love and Chance, which won the Cesar for Best Film, Director and Screenplay (a trifecta repeated with Grain). And Kechiche won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Color (also taking the FIPRESCI Prize), where he returned to compete in 2019 with Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo.

Gist: Likely a continuation of Amin’s (Shaïn Boumédine) ‘coming-of-age,’ with cousins, cohorts and other characters predictably in the mix.

Release Date/Prediction: Rumblings about an edited version of Intermezzo premiering in Berlin 2020 didn’t come to fruition. Although nothing’s been announced, we might potentially at least hear an update on the project sometime in 2021—however, considering Kechiche filmed the project years ago, we’d expect this to simply be a surprise festival announcement, although Berlin seems like the best bet considering Venice and Cannes already unveiled the first two chapters. It’s worth remembering this premiere strategy is similar to Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trilogy, wherein each segment competed in a different fest (Love in Cannes, Faith in Venice and Hope in Berlin).