Back to selection
U.S. Indies Strong in Directors’ Fortnight
Blue Ruin Yesterday, David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints was the sole U.S. entry in Critics’ Week, playing in a special screening. However, in the Directors’ Fortnight lineup, there is a more healthy dose of U.S. filmmakers. Magic Magic, one of two films starring Michael Cera that New York-based Chilean director Sebastian Silva premiered at Sundance, makes the leap from Park City to the Croisette, as does Jim Mickle’s cannibal movie We Are What We Are, starring “25 New Face” Julia Garner. Jeremy Saulnier, maybe better known as a stalwart indie cinematographer, premieres his second feature, Blue Ruin, in the strand, while another enticing U.S. title is Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune, a doc about the legendary director’s unrealized film version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel, planned before David Lynch was in the frame for the project. The presence of Pavich’s film is all too fitting because Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality — his first feature in 23 years — also premieres in Directors’ Fortnight.
Other standout titles include the opening night film, The Congress, Ari Folman’s follow-up to Waltz with Bashir; The Arbor director Clio Barnard’s second film, The Selfish Giant; and the very intriguing debut from Irish director Ruairi Robinson, Last Day on Mars, a sci-fi flick starring Liev Schreiber, Romola Garai and Elias Koteas.
The full line-up is below:
- Above the Hill (Raphael Nadjari)
- Apres la nuit (Basil Da Cunha)
- Les Apaches (Thierry De Peretti)
- Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier)
- The Congress (Ari Folman)
- The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorwosky)
- L’escale (Kaveh Bakhtiari)
- La Fille du 14 juillet (Antonin Peretjako)
- Henri (Yolande Moreau)
- Iloilo (Anthony Chen)
- Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich)
- Last Day on Mars (Ruairi Robinson)
- Magic Magic (Sebastian Silva)
- Me Myself and Mum (Guillaume Gallienne)
- On the Job (Erik Matti)
- The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard)
- The Summer of the Flying Fish (Marcela Said)
- Tip Top (Serge Bozon)
- Ugly (Anurag Kashyap)
- Un voyageur (Marcel Ophuls)
- We Are What We Are (Jim Mickle)
