Last year’s Un Certain Regard section had a treasure trove of highlights in Kamal Lazraq’s Hounds, Rodrigo Moreno’s Los Delincuentes, Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies, Monia Chokri’s Simple comme Sylvain and Felipe Gálvez’s The Settlers and Un Certain Regard section winner in Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sexhas been playing like gangbusters on the festival and awards circuit. This year should offer some more national cinema gems.
À son image – 🇫🇷
Thierry de Peretti
Producers: Les Films Velvet’s Frédéric Jouve.
World Sales: Pyramide International
Loosely adapted from Jérôme Ferrari’s novel of the same name, Thierry de Peretti‘s fourth feature film revolves around several moments in the life of Antonia – a photographer who’s the victim of a road traffic accident in Corsica – and her closest friends. À son image moved into production in September of last year so it’ll still be a wet print if presented here. Antonia Buresi, Cédric Appietto and Alexis Manenti star in a project that feels like the section opening or closing film.
Agora – 🇹🇳
Ala Eddine Slim
Producers: Ala Eddine Slim
World Sales: TBC.
After his first feature film in 2016’s The Last of Us (Venice Film Festival preemed and the Lion of the Future) and Directors’ Fortnight preemed Tlamess (2019), Tunisian filmmaker Ala Eddine Slim is tipped to premiere on the Croisette with Agora. A rough cut was just shown at the 2023 Atlas Workshops at the Marrakech Film Festival; the film revolves around three missing people who return to a remote town in Tunisia, where the local police inspector, Fathi, tries to unravel the mystery with the help of her friend Amine. Then a second inspector arrives from the capital. The events of the film develop as if they were taking place in the dreams of two animals – a blue dog and a black crow.
Caravan – 🇨🇿
Zuzana Kirchnerová
Producers: MasterFilm’s Dagmar Sedláčková
World Sales: TBC.
Her graduation film was awarded the first prize in the Cinéfondation of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and a decade plus and some change later, her feature film (selected for L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation in 2021) is set for a 2024 premiere. Zuzana Kirchnerová‘s Caravan tells the tale of Ester — a single mother of a mentally disabled son David. She only has one small dream: to spend two weeks in Italy at her old-time friend´s house without her son. At the last moment, the plans change and she has no other option than to take David with her.
Dry Leaf – 🇬🇪
Alexandre Koberidze
Producers: New Matter Films’ Mariam Shatberashvili, Luise Hauschild
World Sales: TBC.
Last year the Croisette gifted us Fallen Leaves, but we should be getting ready for Dry Leaf. The Tbilisi-born Georgian filmmaker landed major critical acclaim when his sophomore feature What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? premiered in the Berlinale comp of 2021. Production on Alexandre Koberidze‘s third feature took place around August of 2022. The missing person’s drama starring David Koberidze, Irina Chelidze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, Vakhtang Fanchulidze and Otar Nijaradze and essentially begins when Lisa, a photographer, goes missing. The last information on Lisa is that she’s been photographing football stadiums in seven different villages all over Georgia. Her dad Irakli decides to search for her and travels to those places.
Dust Bunny – 🇺🇸
Bryan Fuller
Producers: Thunder Road’s Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee
World Sales: Sierra/Affinity
The Un Certain Regard section has always been a welcoming section for to the horror genre and so when international starlets Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver combine for a feature debut one can imagine that it’s all their on the paper. After cutting his teeth with writing dozens upon dozen of episodes for television’s “Pushing Daisies,” “Hannibal,” “American Gods” and “Star Trek Discovery,” American screenwriter Bryan Fuller re-teamed with Mads for a tale that follows an eight-year-old girl who asks her neighbor for help to kill the monster under her bed who ate her family. Filming on Dust Bunny took place last summer.
The End – 🇩🇰
Joshua Oppenheimer
Producers: Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen
Distributor: Neon.
A first foray into fiction by the docu filmmaker who gave us the masterwork The Act of Killing (2012) and followed that up with the gut-wrenching The Look of Silence (2014), Joshua Oppenheimer‘s apocalyptic musical film moved into production back in Ireland (Germany and Italy followed) in March of last year with the likes of Tilda Swinton and George MacKay. This is about a wealthy family lives in an underground bunker two decades after the end of the world… The End will be fighting for comp spot but we think other English language items have better odds.
Enterre Seus Mortos – 🇧🇷
Marco Dutra
Producers: Lourenço Sant’Anna, Rodrigo Teixeira and Alan Terpins.
World Sales: TBC.
Brazilian filmmaker Marco Dutra has shored up in the Un Certain Regard section in the past with Good Manners in 2017 and he has a new feature film that could see the filmmaker return to the same section. After 2020’s All the Dead Ones and a television series to boot, Dutra landed on Enterre Seus Mortos (Bury Your Dead) in February of 2022 – so this book to film project would have had the time to add all the post-production trimmings. Filmed in Rio de Janerio, Selton Mello, Marjorie Estiano and Betty Faria star in a tale about two animal road corpse removers end up finding a dead woman and decide to collect her body clandestinely. Dutra finds his Good Manners cinematographer in Rui Poças.
The Girl With The Needle – 🇸🇪
Magnus von Horn
Producers: Mariusz Wlodarski, Nordisk Film Creative Alliance’s Malene Blenkov
World Sales: The Match Factory.
The Swedish filmmaker has filled the Croisette with some noir-themed Scandi items with the 2015 Quinzaine-selected The Here After and the 2020-pandemic Cannes Label Sweat. Trine Dyrholm, Vic Carmen Sonne and Besir Zeciri top Magnus von Horn‘s third feature – a black-and-white chiller that was formerly titled The Little Seamstress. The Girl With The Needle (aka Pigen med nålen) is set in post WWI Copenhagen, and sees Karoline (Sonne), a young pregnant factory worker, who takes on the job of a wet-nurse for the charismatic Dagmar (Dyrholm) in order to escape poverty. Under the fake storefront of a candy shop, Dagmar runs a hidden adoption agency, helping poor mothers find foster homes for their unwanted infants. Van Horn re-teams with cinematographer Michal Dymek for what might be some epic black & white photography.
Goat Girl – 🇪🇸
Ana Asensio
Producers: Pedro Hernández Santos and Stefan Schmitz
World Sales: Alpha Violet
Filming on Ana Asensio‘s sophomore feature La niña de la cabra took place in July of 2023 in Madrid and we’ll they could be lining up for an autumn premiere this could be readied for a Croisette showcase. Starring Madrid Alessandra González, Juncal Fernández and Gloria Muñoz, this takes place in the Spanish capital in the late eighties and sees eight-year-old Elena prepares for her First Communion while grappling with her grandmother’s death. Her friendship with gypsy girl Serezade, inseparable from her goat, makes Elena question her worldview. The filmmaker blasted onto the scene with 2017 SXSW winner Most Beautiful Island.
Iddu – 🇮🇹
Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza
Producers: Indigo Film’s Carlotta Calori, Francesca Cima, Nicola Giuliano, Viola Prestieri
World Sales: Les Films du Losange
Filming on Italian filmmaker tandem Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza‘s third feature took place in May of last year — so this mafia world portrait with Italian cinema clout behind the line and in front of the camera could be fighting for a Main Competition spot. Starring Toni Servillo, Barbora Bobulova and Elio Germano, Iddu (aka Lettere a Catello) is loosely based on a specific period in the life of Matteo Messina Denaro. Set in the 90s and tracks the tragic and farcical mystery of his prolonged absence; a world where risks and existential crises never yield the expected results. Grassadonia and Piazza’s first two features in 2013’s Salvo and 2017’s Sicilian Ghost Story were feted in the Critics’ Week section. Veteran cinematographer Luca Bigazzi is onboard here.
Stay tuned for Part II (another ten predictions) tomorrow!
Other predictions:
Out of Competition – Predictions
Critics’ Week – Predictions
Directors’ Fortnight – Predictions
