2017 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz

Know we have three more months to Cannes but believe it or not many have already started to talk about the mother of all festivals perhaps was due to the perception that this years' Berlinale was on the soft side and the hope of Cannes to be strong. The good news is that there are good chances of a very strong lineup as there are master filmmakers that could have ready their films for Cannes and there is always the chance for Cannes second or more timers to go back with great movies.

No, this is not my Wish List but a compilation of possible films that could make it to Cannes. List is made from several Cannes articles plus some lists with most anticipated films of 2017, films I've been tracking and my daily readings.

As we all know, Cannes begins in Berlin, not in the red carpet but in the Industry Market, so it's no surprise that many articles appeared while the Berlinale was running and after the Berlinale Market was closed a few days back.

Before going deep into the list let me remind you of some important news, the 70th edition of the Festival de Cannes will run from May 17 to 28, Pedro Almodóvar is the Official Competition Jury President, the selection will be unveiled in mid-April by Thierry Frémaux, and Werner Herzog will receive the 2017 Carrosse d'Or.

Also this year there will be several celebrations of the milestone anniversary, with some already running like the one that started at midnight when December 31st, 2016 became January 1st, 2017. Most of these activities are sponsored by the city of Cannes (see logo in right photo), will last all year long and all are cinema related -for example on February 21st there is an event with cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn that includes the screening of 1977 Portrait de groupe avec dame d’Aleksandar Petrovic starring none other than Romy Schneider. We will talk more about the many celebratory events in a different post.

Worth mentioning is that in December 2016, the Board of Directors of the Association Française du Festival International du Film, which brings together public authorities and film industry professionals, re-elected Pierre Lescure as President of the Festival for another three-year term, from 2018 to 2020. So we will be seeing him in current edition and for three more years.

There is always chance that Thierry Frémaux (Official Selection), Edouard Waintrop (Quinzaine) and Charles Tesson (Semaine de la Critique) had to make their selections from a similar list to the following compilation. But no matter if films make it to Cannes or not, the most exciting news is that 2017 looks like another great year for outstanding cinema as there are films by some of my very favorite directors as well as with many films starring outstanding actors. So let's start the Cinema Feast with the possibility that soon we will be able to enjoy magnificent œuvres d'art.

The List

France
Mathieu Amalric with Barbara (Jeanne Balibar)
Sarunas Bartas with Frost (Vanessa Paradis)
Luc Besson with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Cara Delevingne, Rihanna)
Gilles Bourdos with Espèces menacées (Suzanne Clément)
Serge Bozon with Madame Hyde (Isabelle Huppert, Romain Duris and Gérard Depardieu)
Robert Campillo with 120 battements par minute (Adèle Haenel)
Laurent Cantet with L'atelier (The Workshop)
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani with Laissez bronzer les cadavres (Let the Bodies Sunbathe!)
Edouard Deluc with Gauguin
Arnaud Desplechin with Les fantômes d’Ismael (Ismael's Ghosts) (Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Louis Garrel)
Jacques Doillon with Rodin
Ziad Doueiri with L'Insulte
Bruno Dumont with Jeannette (musical)
Albert Dupontel with Au revoir là-haut (Mélanie Thierry)
Anne Fontaine with Marvin (Isabelle Huppert)
Philippe Garrel with L'amant d'un jour (One Day Lover)
Jean-Luc Godard with Image et Parole
Michael Haneke with Happy End (Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant)
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun with Une saison en France (A Season in France)
Michel Hazanavicius with Le Redoutable (Louis Garrel plays Jean-Luc Godard)
Abdellatif Kechiche with Mektoub is Mektoub
Abbas Kiarostami with 24 Frames
Sergei Loznitsa with A Gentle Creature
Noémie Lvovsky with Demain et tous les autres jours
Gaël Morel with Prendre Le Large (Leg It)
Florence Quentin with Bonne Pomme (Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu)
Jérémie Renier and Yannick Renier with Les Carnivores
Michaël R. Roskam with Le Fidèle (Racer and the Jailbird) (Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos)
André Téchiné with Nos années folles (Our Roaring Twenties) (Céline Sallette)
Erick Zonca with Fleuve noir (Black River), (Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris)

Hungary
Kornél Mundruczó with Felesleges ember (Superfluous Man)
György Pálfi with His Master's Voice

Italy
Sergio Castellitto with Fortunata (Jasmine Trinca)
Michelangelo Frammartino with Tarda Primavera (Late Spring)
Andrea Pallaoro with The Whale
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani with Una questione privata
Paolo Virzì with The Leisure Seeker

Poland
Urszula Antoniak with Beyond Words
Malgorzata Szumowska with Face

Spain
Pablo Berger with Abracadabra
Isabel Coixet with The Bookshop
Agustín Díaz Yanes with Oro
Carlos Vermut with Quién te cantará

Sweden
Lisa Langseth with Euphoria (Alicia Vikander, Eva Green, Charlotte Rampling)
Måns Månsson and Axel Petersén with The Real Estate
Ruben Östlund with The Square (Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West)

UK
Clio Barnard with Dark River
Garth Davis with Mary Magdalene (Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix)
Andrew Haigh with Lean on Pete

Germany: Wim Wenders with Submergence (Alicia Vikander)
Georgia: George Ovashvili with Khibula
Iceland: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson with Undir trénu (Under the Tree)
Ireland: Rebecca Daly with Good Favour
Norway: Joachim Trier with Thelma
Slovakia: Juraj Lehotsky with Nina

Australia: Warwick Thornton with Sweet Country
Canada: Kim Nguyen with Eye on Juliet

USA (and USA productions in English with foreign directors)
Haifaa Al-Mansour with Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning, Joanne Froggatt) (aka A Storm in the Stars)
Darren Aronofsky with Mother! (Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem)
Sean Baker with The Florida Project
John Cameron Mitchell with How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Sofia Coppola with The Beguilded (Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell)
Alex Garland with Annihilation
Todd Haynes with Wonderstruck (Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore)
Yorgos Lanthimos with The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell)
David Lynch with TV revival of Twin Peaks
Terrence Malick with Ragund (Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Nyqvist, Bruno Ganz)
David Michôd with War Machine (Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt - Neflix)
David Robert Mitchell with Under the Silver Lake (Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough)
Christopher Nolan with Dunkirk
Alexander Payne with Downsizing
Lynne Ramsay with You Were Never Really Here (Joaquin Phoenix)
Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Ben and Joshua Safdie with Good Time
Steven Sodergergh with Logan Lucky (Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Channing Tatum)
Dennis Villeneuve with Blade Runner 2049
Wim Wenders with  Submergence (Alicia Vikander)

Latin America

Mexico
Michel Franco with Las Hijas de Abril (April's Daughter)
Carlos Reygadas with Donde Nace La Vida (Where Life Begins)

Argentina
Diego Lerman with Una Especie de Familia (A Sort of Family)
Lucrecia Martel with Zama (can't be in competition as Pedro Almodovar is involved in production)
Santiago Mitre with La Cordillera (The Summit) (Elena Anaya, Paulina Garcia, Alfredo Castro, Ricado Darin -screenplay developed at Cannes L'Atelier)

Brazil:  Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas with As Boas Maneiras (Good Manners)
Uruguay: Alejandro Landes and Alexis dos Santos with Monos

Middle East
Semih Kaplanoğlu with Grain, Turkey
Talya Lavie with The Current Love of My Life, Israel
Samuel Maoz with Foxtrot , Israel

Asia
Lav Diaz with When the Waves are Gone, Philippines
Ann Hui with 明月几时有 Our Time Will Come, Hong Kong, China
Naomi Kawase with Hikari (Radiance), Japan
Kiyoshi Kurosawa with 散歩する侵略者 Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha (Strolling Invader), Japan
Lou Ye with Feng Zhong You Duo Yu Zuo De Yun, China

First Feature Films (with possibilities)
Après la guerre (After the War), Annarita Zambrano, Italy and France
Ava, Léa Mysius, France
Bloody Milk, Hubert Charuel, France
Cornelius, le meunier hurlant (Cornelius, the Howling Miller), Yann Le Quellec, France (Anaïs Demoustier)
Hier, Balint Kenyeres, France, Sweden and Hungary
I Am Not a Witch, Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, France
Jusqu'à la garde, Xavier Legrand, France
La fête est finie, Marie Garel Weiss, France
La part sauvage, Guérin Van Der Vorst, Belgium
Luna, Elsa Dirringer, France
On Chesil Beach, Dominic Cooke, UK
Si tu voyais son coeur (If You Saw His Heart), Joan Chemla, France (Gael Garcia Bernal)
The Gulf, Emre Yeksan, Turkey
The Charmer, Milad Alami, Iran

Seem could/will run out of time for Cannes
Woody Allen with Wonder Wheel (Kate Winslet)
Fatih Akin with aus dem Nichts (In the Fade)
Paul Thomas Anderson with The Phantom Thread (Daniel Day-Lewis)
Alexandros Avranas with Love Me Not
Xavier Beauvois with Les Gardiennes
Leos Carax with Annette
Alfonso Cuarón with Roma
Claire Denis with  Des lunettes noires (Dark Glasses) (Juliette Binoche)
Xavier Dolan with The Death and Life of John F. Donovan  (Jessica Chastain, introducing: Adele)
Stephen Frears with Victoria and Abdul
Deniz Gamze Ergüven with Kings (Halle Berry, Daniel Craig)
Alexey German Jr with Dovlatov
Valeska Grisebach with Western
Todd Haynes with Wonderstruck
Joon-ho Bong with Okja, (Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal) (Netflix production)
Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles with Bacurau (Nighthawk)
François Ozon with Amant Double
Roman Polanski with Based on a True Story
Sang-soo Hong with La caméra de Claire (Claire's Camera) (Isabelle Huppert and Min-hee Kim)
Myroslav Slaboshpitskiy with Luxembourg
Lorenzo Vigas with La Caja (The Box)
Andrey Zvyagintsev with Loveless

In about two months the selections will be unveiled with us learning how many films made it, and after start the guessing game for Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Moscow, Sarajevo, and Venice.