Cannes 06: Massive Preview IV

Following up on a Screen Daily piece written moments after the Berlin film festival, we’ve decided to go with that list and make a full breakdown of the pictures that we might find at this year’s Cannes film festival. At this point its just speculation – but hell its fun to speculate and after what many consider a long wait for quality projects – I think that buyers and sellers might find themselves in a real frenzy at the Croisette.

With the opening of what will be a massive blockbuster hit (hear those cash registers ring) in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, and by the looks of the names there might be plenty of items to look forward to in the Autumn and be sure there will be plenty of leftovers for both Venice & Toronto (remember: Ang Lee avoided traffic and showcased Brokeback Mountain at Venice. Without further ado, here’s what Cannes 2006 and Jury president Wong Kar-wai may possibly be watching this coming May. Here is part IV of our 5-day preview.

Murderers
Dir: Patrick Grandperret
Gist: Based on an original idea by Maurice Pialat (who was the winner at Cannes for Sous le soleil de Satan), this follows the misadventures of two girls.

The Namesake
Dir: Mira Nair
Gist: Coming off recent films as Vanity Fair and Monsoon Wedding, Nair teams with Sooni Taraporevala who wrote the story of the Ganguli family whose move from Calcutta to New York evokes a lifelong balancing act to meld to a new world without forgetting the old.

Northern Lights
Dir: David Lammers
Gist: The young director featured the film at the last Rotterdam film festival – this may find itself in the Cinquinze section.

Pan’s Labyrinth
Dir: Guillermo Del Toro
Gist: Prior to being the hero of geekdom with Halo,
Guillermo del Toro made this smaller in size project – a fairy tale, a small family in Spain moves into an old house in 1943 after the rise of Fascism. Their eldest daughter, at age 12, falls in love with a fawn that lives in the old ruined labyrinth which resides behind their new decrepit home. An October date was set for the film by Picturehouse – meaning this could need more time for preparation and call for a Fall festival premiere.

Paris Je T’aime
Dir: Various
Gist: Imagine the VIP list for the after party. A who’s who of first rate directors and people worthy of magazine cover picture taking. Problem with these type of projects is that its always this uneven balance of great to mediocre to awful segments. Here the twenty filmmakers have been given five minutes each to bring their own personal touch, underlining the wide variety of styles, genres, encounters and the various atmospheres and lifestyles that prevail in the neighborhoods of Paris.

Princess
Dir: Anders Morgenthaler
Gist: Don’t be surprised if this causes a little controversy – another project from the great nation of Denmark the story is about a sister’s death, the 32- year old August returns and consequently abandons his profession as a missionary priest. His beloved sister Christina, who went from greatness to decay as the famous porn-star The Princess, is dead after years of drug abuse. She leaves behind her 5-year old daughter Mia, whom August feels obliged to take care of.

Red Road
Dir: Andrea Arnold
Gist: Arnold’s short film Wasp picked up the Academy award for Best Short Film. Starring Nathalie Press the story sees Jackie work as a CCTV operator for Glasgow council. Daily she watches over a small part of the world, takes seriously her duties to protect the people moving about in her monitors. Jackie steers clear of involvements with anyone, has life sorted in a way that suits her. Her life has an order, a calm, she has orchestrated it to be this way because in the past Jackie has known the greatest pain a human can know. Then one day a man appears in her monitors, a man she thought she would never see again or wants to see again. Now the opportunity presents itself, she is compelled to confront him.

Scoop
Dir: Woody Allen
Gist: Allen presented an out of comp Matchpoint which might just have picked up a prize had it been include. This year should be different with this project – which again sees Scarlett Johansson – she plays an American journalism student visiting London who investigates a series of murders and falls in love with a dashing Englishman (Hugh Jackman). Ian McShane plays a man who eggs her own in her sleuthing and Allen plays a man posing as her father.

Scream Of The Ants
Dir: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Gist: Makhmalbaf is one of Iran’s most prolific directors and his newest film sees two people journeying through India.

Shortbus
Dir: John Cameron Mitchell
Gist: It’s been an extremely long wait since John Cameron Mitchell’s zany Hedwig & the Angry Inch. This one is of the graphic nudity nature and is set in contemporary New York City, SHORTBUS is the steamy, sexy, sensual exploration of relationships as seen through gender, sexuality, art and music.

Still Life
Dir: Jia Zhangke
Gist: The acclaimed Chinese director (The World) keeps making them, and we keep loving them.

Suburban Mayhem
Dir: Paul Goldman
Gist: Starring Emily Barclay, this brings us into the world of Katrina DeRoche, a 19 year-old single mum who’s planning to do just that. Katrina lives in a world of petty crime, fast cars, manicures and blowjobs. A master manipulator of men living at home with her father in suburban Golden Grove, Katrina will stop at nothing to get what she wants, even murder. When her father threatens to contact social services and take away her child, Katrina sets in motion a plan to wreak suburban mayhem that will leave a community in shock and Katrina infamous in a way even she never dreamed of.

Summer Palace
Dir: Lou Ye
Gist: Little is known about Ye’s (Purple Butterfly
) next project. Perhaps it might be ready for later festivals.

Taxidermia
Dir: Gyorgy Palfi
Gist: A Sundance-funded project, Hungarian director Palfi’s second film Gyorgy Palfi’s horror pic won the 37th Magyar Filmszemle. Here the heroes of “Taxidermia” are three men. Three generations of a family, who happen to live in Eastern-Europe, in Hungary. Surrealism and historical facts get mixed up in his imagination, creating a kind of “fairy realism.”