By Angela Charlton
PARIS (AP) --A Civil War film by Sofia Coppola, a Ukrainian road movie and a drama about AIDS activism are among the 18 films competing for top prizes this year at the Cannes Film Festival , an international cinema extravaganza that organizers hope can help counter rising nationalist sentiment around the world.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux and President Pierre Lescure on Thursday announced a lineup that includes Cannes' first virtual-reality entry, tackles topics from animal cruelty to the migrant crisis and offers four chances to see Nicole Kidman onscreen.
Contenders for the top Palme d'Or prize at the 70th Cannes festival include Coppola's spooky Civil War drama "The Beguiled," starring Kidman and Kirsten Dunst; American director Noah Baumbach's family saga "The Meyerowitz Stories," starring Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler; and fellow American Todd Haynes' 1920s-set drama "Wonderstruck."
Also aiming to impress a competition jury headed by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar are "Okja,"a fantasy thriller with an animal-rights theme by South Korea's Bong Joon-ho starring Tilda Swinton; French director Michel Hazanavicius' tribute to the French New Wave, "Le Redoutable"; sex-trafficking drama "You Were Never Really Here" from Britain's Lynne Ramsay; and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," a thriller from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos starring Kidman and Colin Farrell.
Kidman also appears at Cannes in John Cameron Mitchell's out-of-competition entry "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" and in Jane Campion's TV crime drama "Top of the Lake."
Austrian director Michael Haneke, a two-time Palme d'Or winner, returns with "Happy End," whose title, Fremaux noted, bears little relation to its content.
French filmmaker Robin Campillo's "120 Beats Per Minute" looks at the rise of AIDS activism, while Fremaux called Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa's "A Gentle Creature" a road movie "about the situation of Russia."
In all, 49 films will be shown during the May 17-28 festival, including out-of-competition entries and the sidebar competition "Un Certain Regard." Twelve of the films are by women – up from nine last year.
Director Alejandro G. Inarritu will be in Cannes with the virtual reality short film "Carne y Arena" ("Meat and Sand"), reported to be about migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Fremaux said it was "a beautiful film, you are shivering when you come out of it." He compared the wonders of virtual reality to the wonders unleashed by cinema's founding fathers the Lumiere brothers more than a century ago.
Security will be tight for festival, which is held just down the French coast from Nice, where an Islamic State group-inspired truck attack killed 86 people in July.
Lescure said security was "at its maximum" in 2016 and "there were no serious incidents."
"I hope to see the same results this year," he said.
Global events will cast a shadow over Cannes' famous Croisette, the town's picturesque seafront promenade, after a year that has seen Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the election of the unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump.
France will have a new president by the festival's opening night, with the final stage of the country's two-round election set for May 7.
In a reflection of changing industry economics, several entries at Cannes this year were funded by Netflix or Amazon. And this hallowed ground of cinema is also making room for television, with previews of David Lynch's revived "Twin Peaks" and a new series of Campion's "Top of the Lake."
Political documentaries include "An Inconvenient Sequel," follow-up to Al Gore's climate-change movie "An Inconvenient Truth"; Claude Lanzmann's film about North Korea, "Napalm"; and actress Vanessa Redgrave's directorial debut "Sea Sorrow," about refugees and those trying to help them.
"Sometimes people say the Cannes film festival is very political," Fremaux said. "It's not true. It's not us, it's not me – it's cinema. The makers are concerned about politics."
Fremaux said he hopes the festival can "look to the future" and hold "the promise of living together in harmony."
Here's a rundown of the lineup listing each director and film.
COMPETITION
Opening film:
Arnaud DESPLECHIN
LES FANTÔMES D’ISMAËL (Out of Competition)
Fatih AKIN
AUS DEM NICHTS (IN THE FADE)
Noah BAUMBACH
THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES
BONG Joon-Ho
OKJA
Robin CAMPILLO
120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE
Sofia COPPOLA
THE BEGUILED
Jacques DOILLON
RODIN
Michael HANEKE
HAPPY END
Todd HAYNES
WONDERSTRUCK
Michel HAZANAVICIUS
LE REDOUTABLE
HONG Sangsoo
GEU-HU (THE DAY AFTER)
Naomi KAWASE
HIKARI (RADIANCE)
Yorgos LANTHIMOS
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
Sergei LOZNITSA
A GENTLE CREATURE
Kornél MUNDRUCZÓ
JUPITER’S MOON
François OZON
L’AMANT DOUBLE
Lynne RAMSAY
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Benny SAFDIE, Josh SAFDIE
GOOD TIME
Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV
NELYUBOV (LOVELESS)
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Opening film:
Mathieu AMALRIC
BARBARA
Cecilia ATAN, Valeria PIVATO
LA NOVIA DEL DESIERTO (THE DESERT BRIDE)
Kantemir BALAGOV
TESNOTA (CLOSENESS)
Kaouther BEN
HANIA AALA KAF IFRIT (BEAUTY AND THE DOGS)
Laurent CANTET
L’ATELIER
Sergio CASTELLITTO
FORTUNATA (LUCKY)
Michel FRANCO
LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL (APRIL’S DAUGHTER)
Valeska GRISEBACH
WESTERN
Stephan KOMANDAREV
POSOKI (DIRECTIONS)
Gyorgy KRISTOF
OUT
KUROSAWA Kiyoshi
SANPO SURU SHINRYAKUSHA (BEFORE WE VANISH)
Karim MOUSSAOUI
EN ATTENDANT LES HIRONDELLES (THE NATURE OF TIME)
Mohammad RASOULOF
LERD (DREGS)
Léonor SERRAILLE
JEUNE FEMME
Taylor SHERIDAN
WIND RIVER
Annarita ZAMBRANO
APRÈS LA GUERRE (AFTER THE WAR)
OUT OF COMPETITION
MIIKE Takashi
MUGEN NON JŪNIN (BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL)
John Cameron MITCHELL
HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES
Agnès VARDA JR
VISAGES, VILLAGES
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Jean-Stéphane SAUVAIRE
PRAYER BEFORE DAWN
BYUN Sung-Hyun
BULHANDANG (THE MERCILESS)
JUNG Byung-Gil
AK-NYEO (THE VILLAINESS)
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Bonni COHEN, Jon SHENK
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL
Raymond DEPARDON
12 JOURS (12 DAYS)
Anahita GHAZVINIZADEH
THEY
HONG Sangsoo
KEUL-LE-EO-UI KA-ME-LA (CLAIR’S CAMERA)
Eugene JARECKI
PROMISED LAND
Claude LANZMANN
NAPALM
Jude RATMAN
DEMONS IN PARADISE
Vanessa REDGRAVE
SEA SORROW
VIRTUAL REALITY (FILM/INSTALLATION/EXHIBITION)
Alejandro G. IÑÁRRITU
CARNE Y ARENA
70TH ANNIVERSARY EVENTS
Jane CAMPION, Ariel KLEIMAN
TOP OF THE LAKE: CHINA GIRL
Abbas KIAROSTAMI
24 FRAMES
David LYNCH
TWIN PEAKS
Kristen STEWART
COME SWIM
CANNES COURT MÉTRAGE
Teppo AIRAKSINEN
KATTO (Ceiling) Finland
Lucrèce ANDREAE
PÉPÉ LE MORSE (Grandpa Walrus) animation France
Madhi FLEIFEL
A DROWNING MAN UK, Denmark, Greece
Alireza GHASEMI
LUNCH TIME Iran
Fiona GODIVIER
ACROSS MY LAND USA
Grzegorz MOŁDA
KONIEC WIDZENIA (Time to Go) Poland
QIU Yang
XIAO CHENG ER YUE (A Gentle Night) China
Andrés RAMIREZ
PULIDO DAMIANA Colombia
Julia THELIN
PUSH IT Sweden
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More