Cannes Film Festival 2018: Day 5

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by Alexa Dalby

The Image Book (Le Livre d’Image)
by Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard provides social commentary during a montage of digitally altered, color-saturated film clips.

The Image Book is a work that reprises many of Jean-Luc Godard’s familiar ideas , but with an unexpected urgency and visceral strangeness. – Guardian

“Godard’s multifaceted essay film revels in the mobility and mutability of imagery in the 21st century, uncovering the violence of representation but always searching for hope in a cacophonous world.” – BFI

Girls of the Sun (Les Filles du Soleil)
by Eva Husson

A battalion of women fights against extremists who have conquered their small Kurdish town.

“Girls of the Sun is the sort of film that raises a number of questions both about the nature of feminist cinema and our expectations of it.” – BFI

“Eva Husson directs a pedantically commonplace drama about a French journalist embedded with a female peshmerga unit as they free a town under ISIS control.” – Variety

3 Faces (Se Rokh)
by Jafar Panahi

Based on a true story about a girl who had been banned from becoming an actress and who subsequently committed suicide, 3 Faces focuses on three actresses at different stages of their careers with Panahi essentially playing himself. He and veteran actress Behnaz Jafari (also playing herself) journey to Iran’s Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan region in a quest to find Marziyeh (Marziyeh Rezaei), who sent Behnaz a desperate video message. In the video, she tells of her dreams of becoming an actress and seemingly hangs herself at the end of the clip. Behnaz and Jafar look for clues in her provincial village where they also find a third actress, Shahrzad, from the pre-Revolutionary days, who has come to Marziyeh’s village in her retirement to paint.

In his own unique way Panahi takes a subtle look at the treatment of these three women of different generations who have suffered from repression and misogyny in his homeland.

“Jafar Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari take a storied, allusive road trip through the repressive territory of patriarchal rural Iran.” – Variety

Mon Tissu Préferé (My Favourite Fabric)
by Gaya Jiji

“A young woman in 2011 Damascus rejects her mother’s choice of a suitor and fitfully explores her fantasies in this tale of female empowerment.” – Variety

“A young woman explores her sexuality as Syria teeters towards war”. – Screen Daily

Mandy

by Panos Cosmatos

In the Pacific Northwest in 1983, outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with deadly fire.

“Fabulously ferocious Nicolas Cage revenge horror. Cage is on magnificent, mind-boggling form as a chainsaw-wielding lumberjack hunting the gang who invaded his home.” – Guardian


Teret (The Load)
by Ognjen Glavonic

Vlada works as a truck driver during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Tasked with transporting a mysterious load from Kosovo to Belgrade, he drives through unfamiliar territory, trying to make his way in a country scarred by the war. He knows that once the job is over, he will need to return home and face the consequences of his actions.

“A truck driver delivers some ominously secret cargo in Serbian director Ognjen Glavonic’s dramatic debut.” – Hollywood Reporter

“Serbian director Ognjen Glavoni?’s austere debut fiction feature depicts a day in the life of a trucker on a treacherous journey.” – Variety

“To stare into Lucev’s eyes is to stare into the soul of a man silently burdened by pain and guilt. It’s a memorable performance that couldn’t better encapsulate The Load’s tone: pensive and piercing.” – Screen International

 

Diamantino
by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmid

Diamantino casts a singularly surreal eye on an ambitious array of subjects. A disgraced soccer star seeks redemption but is exploited by a variety of causes hoping to capitalize on his celebrity.

“Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt rustle up one of the year’s most singular debuts with this winningly bizarre, genre-melding political satire.” – Variety

“A sweetly bizarre fantasy mocking the cult of fame. Unconventional storytelling, adorable pets and topical references swell this affectionate yarn about a Cristiano Ronaldo-esque soccer star being co-opted into an anti-EU plot.” – BFI

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