Cannes 2010: the line-up

Hollywood is out and Europe, Asia and Latin America are all very much in for this year's Cannes Film Festival

It’s that time of year again, when a global contingent of film journalists enthusiastically flock to a brutalist screening complex on the Côte d’Azur to sample the cream of world (and a smattering of Hollywood) cinema so that you don’t have to. First thing to note this year is that, as per the comments of festival director Thierry Frémaux at the official line-up announcement, there are still four spaces to play for in the main competition, but, that Terrence Malick’s long-awaited ‘Tree of Life’ will NOT be filling one of those spots as it’s not yet completed. And let’s be frank, Malick isn’t the kind of director to stand by smiling as a work in progress screens to critics.

Elsewhere, surprises are particularly thin on the ground with many of the titles (excluding, perhaps, Sergei Loznitsa’s ‘You My Joy’ which is this year’s time-honoured rookie title) already featuring in one of the myriad rumours and predictions pieces that have cropped up on the web over the past month. The British flag is this year being flown by Mike Leigh, who’s in competition with ‘Another Year’, and Stephen Frears, who’s out of competition with 'Tamara Drewe’. Sophie Fiennes, director of ‘The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema’, also returns for a special screening of her new work, ‘Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow’.

We are particularly looking forward to new films by Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ is his long-awaited feature follow-up to the sublime ‘Syndromes and a Century’, and of course, Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami who, following a decade of minimalist experimentation with films like ‘5’ and ‘Shirin’, returns with (what looks like) a more conventional drama in ‘Certified Copy’. Un Certain Regard highlights include 'Aurora', the new film by Christi Puiu, director of 2005 Un Certain Regard winner, 'The Death of Mr Lazarescu', and 'Socialisme', the new movie by Jean-Luc Godard. Here's a list of the line-up thus far...


Opening Film
Ridley Scott ‘Robin Hood’

The Competition
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun ‘Un Homme Qui Crie n’est pas un Ours Qui Danse’
Mike Leigh ‘Another Year’
Apichatpong Weerasethakul ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’
Doug Liman ‘Fair Game’
Im Sang-soo ‘The Housemaid’
Lee Chang-dong ‘Poetry’
Alejandro González Iñárritu ‘Biutiful’
Xavier Beauvois ‘Of Gods and Men’
Sergei Loznitsa ‘You My Joy’
Bertrand Tavernier ‘The Princess of Montpensier’
Abbas Kiarostami ‘Certified Copy’
Takeshi Kitano ‘Outrage’
Danielle Luccheti ‘La nostra vita’
Nikita Mikhalkov ‘Burnt by the Sun 2’
Mathieu Amalric ‘Tournée’
Rachid Bouchareb ‘Hors La Loi’

Un Certain Regard
Hideo Nakata ‘Chatroom’
Vikramaditya Motwane ‘Udaan’
Cristi Puiu ‘Aurora’
Xavier Dolan 'Les amours imaginaires'
Jean-luc Godard ‘Socialisme’
Christoph Hochhäusler 'The City Below'
Radu Muntean 'Marti'
Dupa Craciun & Olivier Schmitz 'Life Above All'
Fabrice Gobert 'Simon Werner a disparu...'
Daniel Vega 'Octubre'
Xiaoshuai Wang 'Chongqing Blues'
Ivan Fund & Santiago Loza 'Los Labios'
David Verbeek 'R U There'
Manoel De Oliveira 'The Strange Case of Angelica'
Hong Sang-soo 'Ha Ha Ha'
Lodge Kerrigan 'Rebecca H'
Derek Cianfrance 'Blue Valentine'

Out of Competition
Oliver Stone 'Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps'
Woody Allen 'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger'
Stephen Frears 'Tamara Drewe'

Midnight Screenings
Gregg Araki ‘Kaboom’
Gilles Marchand ‘L’Autre Monde’

Special Screenings
Charles Ferguson ‘Inside Job’
Sophie Fiennes ‘Over Cities Grass Will Grow’
Patrizio Guzman ‘Nostalgia De La Luz’
L’Italaia Che Trema & Sabina Guzzanti ‘Draquila’
Otar Iosseliani ‘Chantrapas’
Diego Luna ‘Abel’

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