Given that James Franco’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying will be playing at this year’s Cannes, it seems appropriate to recall one of the novelist’s most famous quotations when thinking about two of the festival’s more memorable films. Reflecting on the conflicts over race and national identity that tore apart the deep south where he lived, Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun, “the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” This persistence of the past — how it can haunt us in myriad ways — is central to two of the more powerful films at this …

Negotiating Cannes is a unique challenge, especially for someone attending the festival for the first time. Although the festival is commonly associated with red carpets and other assorted glamour, my clearest memories of the festival entail trekking from a borrowed condo in Antibes early in the morning — thanks to the monumental patience of my wife who drove me in — to queue up with other journalists for an 8:30 press screening (finding those lines the first couple of days is an entirely different matter). Rainy weather early in the festival also seemed to undermine Cannes’ reputation for sun and …

This year’s 66th Cannes Film Festival opened with a venerable love fest at the Jury Press Conference on Wednesday. Led by Steven Spielberg, this year’s panel drew an incredible mix of cinema talent Ang Lee, Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz, as well as Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and Scotland’s Lynne Ramsay. Spielberg and Lee admitted to the assembled press that they absolutely worshipped each other, despite being pitted up against each other at the Oscars this year. Although Spielberg said he was ready to judge, he claimed, “I look at this as two weeks of celebrating film, not two weeks …

Since IFP and Filmmaker began programming the reRun Theater in Brooklyn, we’ve been trying to bring audiences great films, but also do it in an interesting and different way whenever possible. One of the ideas that we came up with to bring a little variety to proceedings was our Secret Film Club, which kicks off tonight. In the next week, we’ll be playing 11 films over five different nights. The screenings will all be free. But we won’t be telling anyone what the films are. Cryptic clues will be distributed to give you something to go on, however, the first …

Director David Lassiter, whose short film The Opportunist is playing in the Critics’ Fortnight, is blogging about his Cannes experiences. You can read his first dispatch here. Day one at Cannes and we’re already off to the races! After almost a full day of travel (L.A. -> Toronto -> Zurich -> Nice -> Cannes) we checked into an Airbnb apartment owned by a charming Frenchman named Olivier, dropped off our bags, and hit the Croisette. Our first stop was the Palais de Festival, where we were warmly greeted by Julie Marnay and her lovely team at Semaine de la Critique. …

Another day, another bunch of clips from U.S. indies playing at Cannes. Above there is a quick snippet, featuring Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner, from James Gray’s period drama The Immigrant (previously called Lowlife). The Weinstein Company will be putting out the film (also starring Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix) later this year and, barring terrible reviews from Cannes critics, it should be a 2013 awards contender. Below are a teaser trailer and a clip from Jeremy Saulnier’s second feature, Blue Ruin, which looks incredibly compelling and has the potential to establish the director (who mostly plies his trade as a …