SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 The films competing at Cannes he Palme d’Or is the Cannes Film Festival’s most ‘Marguerite & Julien’ prestigious award. This year, 19 films are vying for France’s Valerie Donzelli presents a story about inces- Tthe trophy. Eleven are from Europe, more than half tuous love between a brother and sister, based on a real of them from France and Italy. Three movies hail from 17th century relationship that resulted in the execution of North America and another three from Asia. The remain- the siblings. ing two are by Mexican and Australian directors. Here is the list of this year’s contenders for the prize: ‘My Mother’ Nanni Moretti is an Italian filmmaker loved by Cannes. ‘Sicario’ In 2001, he won the Palme d’Or for “The Son’s Room”. Set on the Mexican border and starring Emily Blunt, Now, he stars alongside John Turturro in this semi-autobi- Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, this thriller is about a CIA ographical film, which is about a director suffering per- operation to bring down a drug lord. It was directed by sonal and professional crises. Canada’s Denis Villeneuve, who made the critically acclaimed “Prisoners” in 2013 starring Hugh Jackman-and ‘Our Little Sister’ who has been tapped to film a sequel to the sci-fi classic A Japanese manga comic gets a cinematic adaptation “Blade Runner”. in this movie from Hirokazu Koreeda, who won the Cannes Jury Award two years ago. The story is about ‘Carol’ three sisters living in a house left by their grandmother Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett stars with who go to their father’s funeral. There, they meet their Rooney Mara in this lesbian love story set in New York in orphaned stepsister and invite her to stay with them. the 1950s, adapted by US director Todd Haynes from a Taiwan brings to Cannes a new period martial arts film by novel by Patricia Highsmith, who wrote “The Talented Mr director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. A leader of Taiwan’s New Wave ‘The Measure of a Man’ Ripley”. cinema movement, his movies have been nominated six This French movie by Stephane Brize is about a newly times for the Palme d’Or, but he has never won. However hired supermarket security guard who is asked to spy on ‘The Sea of Trees’ in 1993, he picked up the Cannes Jury Prize for “In the his colleagues. Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Hands of a Puppet Master”. Watts star in this movie about an American who meets a ‘Dheepan’ - Japanese man in a mysterious suicide forest at the foot of ‘Mountains May Depart’ French director Jacques Audiard presents a drama Mount Fuji. US director Gus Van Sant, who made “Good Chinese director Jia Zhangke won Cannes’ best about a Sri Lankan refugee struggling to start a new life in Will Hunting” and “Milk”, won the Palme d’Or in 2003 with screenplay award in 2013 for his “A Touch of Sin”. He’s a tough Paris suburb. “Elephant”. back with a three-part tale spanning several decades that begins with separated lovers in China and ends up in a ‘Son of Saul’ ‘Macbeth’ future Australia. Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes brings his first fea- Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard lead the cast ture film to Cannes. The story is a Holocaust drama about in this new big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Chronic’ an Auschwitz prisoner who tries to save from incineration tragedy. The film was largely filmed in Britain by Tim Roth plays a male nurse who confronts his guilt as the corpse of a boy he believes to be his son. — AFP Australian director Justin Kurzel, who will soon start he helps terminally ill patients to die in this English-lan- shooting a movie based on the hit computer game guage movie by Mexico’s Michel Franco. “Assassin’s Creed”. ‘The Lobster’ Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz star in this bizarre sci-fi story by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos about single Jury of stars to decide the Palme d’Or people sequestered in a hotel and given 45 days to find a partner, or be transformed into animals. annes’s Palme d’Or, which goes to the top movie at is Not Enough”. She also has built up directing chops, with the film festival on the French Riviera, will be decided 2002’s “Speak to Me of Love” and 2007’s “Trivial”. ‘Youth’ Cby a jury mostly made up of star actors and directors: Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda, Harvey Keitel Rossy de Palma and Paul Dano star in this tale about two old friends, a The Coen brothers Long a go-to actress for legendary Spanish director filmmaker and a retired music composer, who grapple Joel and Ethan Coen, the sibling writing/directing duo Pedro Almodovar, Rossy de Palma is immediately recogniz- with family issues and fading careers during a holiday in behind quirky US cult hits “The Big Lebowski” and “Fargo”, able by her unique looks. The 50-year-old Spanish actress an Alpine hotel. It was made in English by Italian director and the Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men”, are this was regularly cast in Almodovar films, starting with 1987’s Paolo Sorrentino, who won an Oscar last year for his story year’s co-presidents of the jury. Which could mean a bias for “Law of Desire”, through to 2009’s “Broken Embraces”. of Italian decay, “The Great Beauty”. violent movies with dark humor? Guillermo del Toro ‘The Tale of Tales’ Jake Gyllenhaal This Mexican director has become a powerhouse in Starring Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel and directed The 34-year-old American has acting in his bones, born Hollywood for his fantasy blockbusters that suavely balance by Italy’s Matteo Garrone, this English-language, special to film producer and film director parents and performing human relationships and big-screen spectacle, in the style effects-driven fantasy is inspired from a collection of 17th before the camera since age 11. “Donnie Darko” brought of “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson (he even joined century Italian fairy tales. him notice that turned into fame when he starred in Jackson in co-writing the screenplay for the recent “Hobbit” “Brokeback Mountain”. Since then, his career has mixed trilogy). Del Toro’s Spanish-language “Pan’s Labyrinth” won ‘Mon Roi’ commercial roles (in “Zodiac”, “Prince of Persia” and “Source multiple Oscars for its lush and imaginative look, while his Vincent Cassel stars in a French story about a passion- Code”) with intriguing thespian picks (“Enemy”, devilish superhero movie “Hellboy” and its sequel cement- ate but complicated couple. The film was directed by “Nightcrawler”). He should be seriously beefed up in ed his Hollywood status. Maiwenn, who won Cannes’ Jury Prize in 2011 for the cop Cannes, having packed on muscle for his soon-to-be- drama “Polisse”, which The Hollywood Reporter com- released movie “Southpaw”, about a boxer. Xavier Dolan pared to the vaunted US TV series “The Wire”. This 26-year-old Canadian is recognized as a directing Sienna Miller prodigy. His French-language “Mommy” last year picked up ‘Valley of Love’ The 33-year-old British actress’s career took off in 2004’s Cannes’s Jury Prize. His career started early, at age 20; with “I Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert play an “Layer Cake” (which earned its star, Daniel Craig, the role of Killed my Mother”. His first English-language feature, “The estranged couple who lose their son to suicide but decide James Bond) and her turn as Andy Warhol’s muse in 2005’s Death and Life of John F. Donovan”, is due out next year. six months later to honor his written request to meet him “Factory Girl”. A string of forgettable roles in movies such as in California’s Death Valley. “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra” followed, although her career Rokia Traore appears back on track now after supporting roles in two This 41-year-old Malian is neither an actress nor a ‘Louder Than Bombs’ Oscar-nominated films last year, “Foxcatcher” and director, but her music, which restructures traditional Actors Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle “American Sniper”. standards from her country, has become a touchstone in Huppert star in this English-language movie from the “world” genre. Her last album, “Beautiful Africa”, came Norway’s Joachim Trier, about a family drama told from Sophie Marceau out in 2013. — AFP Sophie Marceau, 48, has carved out a more-than-three- 2015 Cannes Film Festival multiple points of view. decade-long career in her native France, and is probably ‘The Assassin’ best-known elsewhere for her turns in the big-budget stu- Fifteen years after “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, dio movies “Braveheart” and as a Bond villain in “The World.