Cannes 2010 Predictions (Sidebars): Bertucelli, Bonello, Muntean, Fliegauf

And here’s the final part to my Cannes predictions, a couple of days back Screen Daily made up their own Tips list with some surprise titles that I don’t think will make it to Cannes (although I badly want to see Abdellatif Kechiche’s Black Venus, I think he might return to Venice), and some titles that have a good shot which I did not mention (John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole) and plenty of their list mimics my picks – such as Julie Bertucelli’s The Tree – see pic above.

Le Roman de ma femme – Tadjik Djamshed Usmonov
Having been to Cannes three previous times in the past decade (most recently To Get To Heaven First You Have to Die), if Usmonov is currently filming or in post production then he’ll be a welcomed addition to the fest this year (actually if any readers now the status of this film please let me know). The film opens with the disappearance of Michel, who leaves behind his distraught wife, Eve, and enormous debts. Fortunately, she receives support from her friend Chollet, a lawyer like her husband, who pays off the debts and helps her to start enjoying life again. Lea Seydoux and Olivier Gourmet topline.

Shit Year – Cam Archer
I could very much see this in the Director’s Fortnight section: the story about a woman who has given up her passion, only to find that she really can’t stand herself, or others, without it. Colleen West (Ellen Barkin), a once renowned actress, comes unhinged as she confronts retirement and life at the twilight of her career.

Svinalangorna – Pernilla August 
The projects was announced at the festival last year, and is currently in post and stars Noomi Rapace who is one of the hottest names in Europe right now. Based on Susanna Alakoski’s August-prize winning novel, Svinalängorna tells of Leena, a 34 year-old woman, living in Stockholm with her husband and two daughters. When she receives a phone call informing her of her mother’s death in Ystad, her troubled past as a young girl, raised by Finnish/Swedish alcoholic parents, comes back to haunt her.

Tuesday, After Christmas – Radu Muntean
Part of what should be a strong Romanian presence at the fest, Muntean who showed off Boogie in the Director’s Fortnight in 2008, and here he continues with the adultery theme seeing Paul and Adriana, who’ve been married for 10 years and have an 8-year-old daughter. Paul decides to leave his wife for his mistress.

The Tree – Julie Bertucelli
Bertucelli has the benefit of having hit it out of the park with her first film (Since Otar Left) a Critic’s Week selection in 2003, and she returns with Best Actress winner Charlotte Gainsbourg as the film’s lead – adapted from Judy Pascoe’s novel Our Father Who Art in a Tree, this tells the story of a family in mourning after the death of their father.

Two Gates of Sleep – Alistair Banks Griffin
From the same production house (Borderline Films) as the Un Certain Regard selection Afterschool, this debut sees Brady Corbet in the role of Jack, who sees mother turns up dead at the edge of a field near his rural home, he and his brother set out on an arduous journey to fulfill her last wish.

Where the Boys Are (Short Film) – Bertrand Bonello
A regular at the fest, Bonello showed The Pornographer (2001) in the Critics’ Week, Tiresia (2003), in Competition, 2005’s short, Cindy, the Doll is Mine and 2008’s On War (Directors’ Fortnight). 

What’s Wrong with Virginia – Dustin Lance Black
If Gus Van Sant doesn’t present one of his own at the festival this year, he may push this project by the Oscar-winning scribe about Virginia (Jennifer Connelly), a psychologically disturbed woman who has engaged in a 20-year clandestine love with a sheriff (Ed Harris), who is running for the state senate, is tested when her son begins a relationship with his daughter (Emma Roberts).

White, White World – Oleg Novkovic
Selected at the 4th edition of the Cannes Festival Cinéfondation Workshop, this is bout a former box-champion King, now an unpredictable and dangerous bar-owner of about 40 years, lives in the lost city of Bor, a former mining town. When he meets 16-year-old Vita, he falls in love with a woman for the first time of his life.

Womb – Benedek Fliegauf
Also one of the fifteen selected at the 4th edition of the Cannes Festival Cinéfondation workshop, this genre pic could fit in the Director’s Fortnight. The futuristic drama pic tells the story of a grieving widow, played by Eva Green, who decides to clone her late husband.

Yelling To The Sky – Victoria Mahoney
I’m not sure how Precious was received at Cannes last year, but if they were into Gabourey Sidibe then they might want to see what she is up to next in the U.S indie set in depraved a New York neighborhood, the youngest of three mixed-race sisters named Sweetness O’Hara, spends the better part of being seventeen navigating an identity between the known: a violent life of crime, and the unknown: a life of purpose and meaning.