I spent all of last week divulging some of films that I expect to be in Cannes this year, and Screen Daily happened to do the same. There are a good number of films that are mentioned of both sites' lists, but I mention about twenty films that the trade makes no mention of, and of course they have got a long list as well of films that I either passed on as potential selections or I was totally oblivious as to their existence.
What do Juan Antonio Bayona, Bernardo Bertolucci, Guillermo del Toro, Ken Loach, Jacques Audiard, François Ozon and Wong Kar-Wai have in common? They all got their starts at the far-end of the Croisette in the smallest of the sections called Critic's Week. The section specializes in mostly first time, and sometimes sophomore films from new talent.
Following my top ten TIFF list of titles available piece that I published a couples of hours back, TIFF released the lengthy list of titles that are looking for deals. Among those that I didn't mention in my top ten but could have easily have been there is the omission of Micmacs à tire-larigot
He'll be inevitably compared in both his acting and now, directing career to Y tu mamá también/Rudo Y Cursi counterpart Gael Garcia Bernal. Bernal who made his social class structure, pool yard debut with Déficit, has since fallen back to playing in front of the camera, while Diego Luna's film schooling has included Julian Schnabel, Julie Taymor, Steven Spielberg, Harmony Korine, the Cuaron brothers and most recently, Gus Van Sant.
The section devoted to 1st and 2nd films is mostly going with newbies this year. With the exception of Altiplano starring (Olivier Gourmet) from director pairing of Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth (Khadak), in my opinion, the complete sidebar will be a like throwing a dart aimlessly and hoping to land on something worth your while. In the past couple of years they had Junebug, Me and you and everyone we know, Look Both Ways, XXY, and my favorite film of the section in 2008 was Aida Begic's Snijep (Snow).