Film Festivals

2023 Cannes: Steve McQueen, Takeshi Kitano & Victor Erice Featured in the Out of Comp Sections

Published on April 13, 2023

Let it be known that Thierry Frémaux wanted Martin Scorsese in competition but instead, Killers of the Flower Moon will have been a firm Out of Competition offering for Cannes 2023. The already identified James Mangold‘s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and (episodes) of Sam Levinson’s “The Idol” are joined by Kim Jee-woon‘s Cobweb which we believed to be a potential Midnight Screening selection. And speaking of midnight selections, we got a total of three with Anurag Kashyap‘s under-the-radar Kennedy, Elias Belkeddar‘s Omar la fraise and Just Philippot‘s (formerly titled Eau-forte) Acide (#50 in our Top Most Anticipated Films list) grabbing past my bedtime spots.

In the still new-ish Cannes Premiere labeled section we find a quartet of items (it might also be the section that expands the most between now and when the fest actually begins) we find Takeshi Kitano‘s long-awaited (and final) film – Kubi. We have the another item in the “long-awaited” category with the return to filmmaking for Victor Erice and his Cerrar Los Ojos, and perhaps what the section is best known for (as an extra venue to promote the French filmmakers) we find Katell Quillévéré presenting Le Temps d’aimer (#80 in our Top Most Anticipated Films list) and Martin Provost‘s Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe. And finally the Special Screenings (aka home of docs) section will have Wim Wenders and Wang Bing “other films”, Steve McQueen‘s Occupied City and Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s Pictures of Ghosts.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).