(Paris) The portrait of a manic-depressive filmmaker by Michel Gondry, films from Cameroon, India or Russia: the Quinzaine des cinéastes, one of the main parallel sections of the Cannes Film Festival, announced on Tuesday its 55e selection.
Non-competitive, this section is dedicated to the discovery of new filmmakers, but has nevertheless slipped a few recognized authors into its selection.
Frenchman Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Be nice, rewind), will present The solution booka “comedy about the creative process […] of a manic-depressive filmmaker”, with Pierre Niney and Blanche Gardin, announced the general delegate, Julien Rejl.
The South Korean Hong Sang-soo, used to major festivals, is selected at the end (with Woo-ru-ui-ha-ru), and the Fortnight will also screen the latest films by Cédric Kahn, the author of Prayerback with The Goldman trial on extreme left activism in the 1970s or the new baroque queer work of Bertrand Mandico.
Most of the selection of 19 new films is however centered on discoveries, with in particular an Indian film on the repression of sexuality (Agra by Kanu Behl), a “totally independent” Russian road movie shot in 2021 (Grace by Ilya Povolotsky) or a Belgian-Cameroonian film “between fiction and documentary” on the journey of a “mother-courage” (Mambar Pierrette by Rosine Mbakam)…
4,000 films were viewed (including short films) testifying to a “return in force of Asia and the United States and some African proposals”, underlined the general delegate.
The films selected for May “embody a spirit of resistance to all forms of ideology and dominant discourse”. Among the recurring reasons, “the malaise between the sexes”, “the return of religion” and a strong presence of genre cinema, from fantasy to adventure through thriller, he pointed out.
Like all Cannes selections, the former Directors’ Fortnight, renamed Directors’ Fortnight this year for the sake of inclusion, refuses to accept any quotas linked to origin or genre.
In total, 27% of the feature films submitted were directed by female directors, who sign a slightly higher proportion of the selected feature films, at 32%, said Mr. Rejl.