Events roundup

Fifty features with a French production component (among which 31 are 100% French or majority-French productions) will be presented this year at the Cannes Film Festival.This very rich harvest confirms France as a crucial country in film production worldwide.

12 features in Competition in the Official Selection, plus 8 in Special Screenings (being the entire strand), 1 in Midnight Screenings, 8 films in Un Certain Regard, 9 films in Critics' Week (out of 12 films presented overall, Official Selection and Special Screenings), and 13 films in Directors' Fortnight (including the Opening Film). And this is without mentioning ACID, whose selection is traditionally always oriented towards French productions.

The result: Of the 80 features presented in the three main selections, 51 involve French participation in their financing (compared to 59 last year, out of a total of 93 features). France hence remains central to art cinema production worldwide.

Short films also have a strong showing, with nine films presented in these three same selections. This year, actors who have taken the step into directing stand out: Félix Moati will present his first short in the Official Selection, and Critics' Week will close with world premieres of short films by Sandrine Kiberlain and Lætitia Casta.
News focusing on French short films to be presented at Cannes will be posted soon.

Official Selection

Features - Competition:

• Slack Bay by Bruno Dumont
• From the Land of the Moon by Nicole Garcia
• Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas
• Rester vertical by Alain Guiraudie
• Elle by Paul Verhoeven
• The Salesman by Asghar Farhadi
• La Fille inconnue by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne (minority production)
• I, Daniel Blake by Ken Loach (minority production)
• Juste la fin du monde by Xavier Dolan (minority production)
• Sieranevada by Cristi Puiu (minority production)
• Bacalaureat by Cristian Mungiu (minority production)
• Aquarius by Kleber Mendonça Filho (minority production)

Features - Special Screenings:

• Hissène Habré by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
• Exil by Rithy Panh
• Le Cancre by Paul Vecchiali
• La Mort de Louis XIV by Albert Serra
• Wrong Elements by Jonathan Littell
• Fool Moon by Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
• Chouf by Karim Dridi
• L'Ultima spiaggia by Thanos Anastopoulos and Davide Del Degan (minority production)

Features - Midnight Screenings:

• Blood Father by Jean-François Richet

Features - Un Certain Regard:

• The Dancer by Stéphanie Di Giusto
• The Red Turtle by Michael Dudok de Wit
• Voir du pays by Muriel Coulin, Delphine Coulin
• Dogs by Bogdan Mirica
• Clash by Mohamed Diab (minority)
• Harmonium by Koji Fukada (minority)
• Pericles by Stefano Mordini (minority)
• Apprentice by Boo Junfeng (minority)

Directors' Fortnight

Features - Opening Film:

• Fais de beaux rêves by Marco Bellocchio (minority production)

Features - Selection:

• Divines by Houda Benyamina
• Mercenaire by Sacha Wolff
• The Together Project by Solveig Anspach
• Tour de France by Rachid Djaïdani
• Les Vies de Thérèse by Sébastien Lifshitz
• Like Crazy by Paolo Virzi (minority production)
• L'Economie du couple by Joachim Lafosse (minority production)
• My Life as a Zucchini by Claude Barras (minority production)
• Mean Dreams by Nathan Morlando (minority production)
• Neruda by Pablo Larrain (minority production)
• Poesia sin fin by Alejandro Jodorowsky (minority production)
• Wolf and Sheep by Shahrbanoo Sadat (minority production)

Critics' Week

Features - Competition:

• Diamond Island by Davy Chou
• Grave by Julia Ducournau
• Tramontane by Vatché Boulghourjian (minority production)
• Mimosas by Oliver Laxe (minority production)
• A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal (minority production)
• Album by Mehmet Can Mertoglu (minority production)

Features - Special Screenings:

• In Bed with Victoria by Justine Triet (opening film)
• Apnée by Jean-Christophe Meurisse
• Happy Times Will Come Soon by Alessandro Comodin (minority production)

With an impressive 32 French short films selected—including 30 titles in competition!—France is already dominating the spotlight for the upcoming 2016 edition of the festival.

At this year's festival, films by students at prestigious film schools, such as the Gobelins (Ama) and La Poudrière (November), will be shown side by side with films produced by high-profile production companies, such as Sacrebleu Productions (La Chambre Vide), Autour de Minuit (Estate), Les Films du Nord (Stone Soup), and Je Suis Bien Content (Cold Coffee).

In the area of feature films, French animated productions also feature strongly, with two titles in competition—La Jeune Fille sans mains by Sébastien Laudenbach (which has been selected in the ACID program at Cannes this year) and My Life as a Zucchini by Claude Barras (to be presented at the Directors' Fortnight)—and two titles presented out-of-competition—Un rêve solaire by Patrick Bokanowski and the highly-anticipated Louise en hiver by Jean-François Laguionie (presented in an event screening).

Additionally, two feature films that attracted attention at last year's Annecy Festival, April and the Extraordinary World and Long Way North—will be screened again this year to add an extra spark to the customary open air screenings held on the shores of Lake Annecy.

UniFrance's presence in Annecy

The UniFrance teams will be out in force this year, echoing French films' strong presence at the event and will be in attendance at the MIFA Film Market from June 15 through 17.

A number of events are scheduled, including the now-traditional Networking Breakfast co-hosted with the Sodec, Swiss Films, and Wallonie-Bruxelles Images, which will bring together international short film sector professionals.

On the same day as this event, UniFrance will present a recent study on the successful results of French animated films in international markets as a preliminary to the round table hosted by the CNC.

Furthermore, as in 2015, as France's international promotional agency for French films, UniFrance will be taking part in a meeting held during the MIFA between international festival programmers and representatives from institutional bodies.

And finally, as part of our partnership with TitraFilm, UniFrance will be teaming up with this pioneering subtitling company for an evening event, which will provide an added opportunity to promote the celebrated "French Touch" among a range of high-level industry professionals from around the world.

In addition to the number of titles selected, French short films also stand out by their diversity of genres, with dramas, experimental films, and animated films featuring among the many genres represented at the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival.

Two major trends stand out this year. Firstly, the majority of films selected are directed by women. Taking into account all festival sections, ten female directors will accompany their films on the Croisette this year. And secondly, a number of films are directed by actors taking the director's chair: Félix Moati will present his first short in the Official Selection, while the closing night of Critics' Week will showcase world premieres of films by Sandrine Kiberlain and Lætitia Casta.

Official Selection

• Après Suzanne by Félix Moati
• Law of Lamb by Lotfi Achour (co-production with Tunisia) (photo)
• Il Silenzio by Farnoosh Samadi & Ali Asgari (co-production with Italy)

Directors' Fortnight

• Chasse Royale by Lise Akoka & Romane Gueret
• Decorado by Alberto Vasquez (co-production with Spain)
• Léthé by Dea Kulumbegashvili (co-production with Georgia)

Critics' Week

• Campo de viboras by Cristèle Alves Meira (co-production with Portugal)
• L’Enfance d'un chef by Antoine de Bary
• Limbo by Konstantina Kotzamani (co-production with Greece)
• Le Soldat vierge by Erwan Le Duc
• Bonne Figure by Sandrine Kiberlain
• En moi by Lætitia Casta

Cinéfondation

• Ailleurs by Mélody Boulissière
• Aram by Fereshteh Parnian
• Gabber Lover by Anna Cazenave Cambet

Calendar

This program brings together a selection of recent French films proposed by Japanese distibutors. The films will be accompanied by French artists, who will come to meet Japanese spectators and media (major newspapers, Elle Japan, Figaro Japan, J-Wave, etc.), as part of the promotional campaigns organized by the distributors for the films' theatrical releases.  

At the end of the festival, the Air France Audience Award will be announced. Two return trips between Tokyo and Paris will be offered by Air France to the lucky winner of a random draw organized amongst the spectators who have participated in voting for the award.

Apart from the traditional Q&A's with the public after the screenings, and autograph sessions, the French artists will meet the public at the Apple Store in Ginza, and will give masterclasses at the Film School of Tokyo. Other meetings are planned at the Institut Français in Tokyo. A selection of the films participating in the festival will also be presented in three other cities (Kyoto, Osaka, and Fukuoka), with support from the Institut français.

The festival will be preceded by the French Film Market (23-24 June). Twenty French film exporters will come to Tokyo for the event to meet with Japanese distributors. For the first time, the market will be organized in collaboration with TVFI - TV France International. For this occasion, many French television program exporters will be present alongside French film sales agents in Tokyo, but also in Seoul, from 20 through 22 June, where UniFrance will be organizing, for the second consecutive year, a film market aimed at Korean buyers.

The selection:

• The Final Lesson by Pascale Pouzadoux
• Monsieur Chocolat by Roschdy Zem
• Looking for Her by Ounie Lecomte
• Macadam Stories by Samuel Benchetrit
• Taj Mahal by Nicolas Saada
• Once in a Lifetime by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
• Evolution by Lucile Hadzihalilovic
• Mon roi by Maïwenn
• Boomerang by François Favrat
• Valley of Love by Guillaume Nicloux
• Un plus une by Claude Lelouch
• Standing Tall by Emmanuelle Bercot
• Paris Belongs to Us by Jacques Rivette

Apart from Valley of Love and Paris Belongs to Us, all these films have already been acquired by Japanese distributors and will be released in Japan in the coming months.

The delegation is made up of Emmanuelle Bercot, Rod Paradot, François Favrat, Laurent Lafitte, Pascale Pouzadoux, Marthe Villalonga, Isabelle Huppert, Guillaume Nicloux, Omar Sy, Roschdy Zem, Maïwenn, Nicolas Saada, Elsa Zylberstein, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, and Ounie Lecomte.

This event is organized with support from Asahi Shimbun, from the Ambassade de France au Japon and the Institut français in Japan, Renault, Lacoste, Air France, Palace Hotel, Toho Cinema, TitraFilm, and the CNC.