2008 selection of films
Date : 01/01/1970
The 2008 selection of the Directors' Fortnight is now available for download :


Download the selection


You can also see the selection online in the Directors' Fortnight 2008 section.
FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA de Jerzy Skolimowski
Date : 24/04/2008
to open Directors' Fortnight.

The Directors' Fortnight opens this year with the world premiere of Four nights with Anna, the new movie by Jerzy Skolimowski, 17 years after his last feature.

Born in 1938 in Lodz, Jerzy Skolimowski is one of the most important figures of modern cinema. Director of more than 20 movies since the beginning of the 60's, he have created many masterpices of history, in Poland (Signes particuliers : néant, Walkover, La Barrière), in Belgium (Le départ), in the United-Kingdom (Deep End, Travail au noir) and in the United-States (Le bateau-phare). His new movie, shot in poland, mark the return of a cinema master.
LA INFLUENCIA
Date : 02/04/2008
Influencia (La) by Pedro Aguilera selected at Directors' Fornight 2007, is sheduled for theatrical release in France.

Theatrical release on April 23rd, 2008

Synopsis : This is the story of a disoriented and vulnerable woman, overburdened with daily life problems and more: her belongings are impounded, her cosmetics shop has been closed down and her children's future is unknown.
The children's vitality draws a sharp contrast against the apathy shown by their mother, who slowly plunges into a deep depression. The kids, becoming aware that she lacks the necessary strength and maturity to effectively face these problems, are forced to adopt adult attitudes.

French Distributor : Bac Films
GEGENÜBER ( L'UN CONTRE L'AUTRE )
Date : 02/04/2008
Gegenüber ( L'Un contre l'autre) by Jan Bonny selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France .

Theatrical release on April 30th, 2008

Synopsis :
Policeman Georg is very popular amongst his colleagues for always being calm and cool-headed. His partner Michael also admires him for his apparently harmonic marriage with Anne, an attractive primary
school teacher.
When a promotion is announced to Georg, he begins to lose control over the carefully maintained façade of his "intact" family. The conflicts, that have been dominating the couple's life for years, start to surface: Anne's struggle for recognition ' while the traces of domestic violence can no longer be hidden.
Under the Christmas tree tragedy unfolds - "It aint no drama, Anne!' ' Well, yes, it is.

French Distributor : Haut et Court
YUMURTA
Date : 27/03/2008
Yumurta by   Semih Kaplanoglu selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France .

Theatrical release on April 23rd, 2008

Synopsis : When his mother dies, Yusuf, a poet, returns to his home village, which he hasn't visited for years. A young girl named Ayla who had been living with his mother for the past five years, is waiting for him in a decrepit house.
Ayla has a request to make: Yusuf must perform the sacrificial rite his mother, Zehra, could not fulfill before she died.

On their way for the saint's tomb, they are obliged to spend the night in a hotel. Caught up in the atmosphere of a wedding party at the hotel, Yusuf and Ayla find themselves drawn together.


French Distributor : Les Acacias
PLOY
Date : 27/03/2008
Ploy by  Pen-ek Ratanaruang selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France .

Theatrical release on April 16th, 2008


Synopsis :
Ploy is a highly detailed, erotic psychological drama in which three strangers are locked inside one hotel room. It starts with subtle suspicions and builds up to jealousy, as the appearance of a young woman triggers devastating consequences for a married couple.

French Distributor : Wild Side
O ESTADO DO MUNDO
Date : 14/02/2008
O estado do Mundo by  Chantal Akerman,  Apichatpong Weerasethakul,  Vicente Ferraz,  Ayisha Abraham,  Wang BIing, Pedro Costa,  selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France .

Theatrical release on February 20th, 2008

Synopsis :
Six directors, six regards on the state of the world. Their cross over creates a new space for a dynamic and radical inquisitive reflection, a space to defy the future.


 French Distributor : Pierre Grise
FOSTER CHILD de Brillante Mendoza
Date : 14/01/2008
Foster Child by  Brillante Mendoza  selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France .

Theatrical release on February 20th, 2008

Synopsis :
Thelma, together with her husband Dado and two teenage sons Gerald and Yuri belongs to an urban poor family in Manila, Philippines. They are hired by a local Foster Care Facility to provide temporary home and care to abandoned babies pending the babies formal adoption.

This is the story of such an event, when Thelma's latest foster child John-John is to be turned over to his adoptive American parents. Every moment with the 3-year old John-John becomes precious as Thelma goes through the day.

 French Distributor : Ad Vitam
THEATRICAL RELEASES IN FRANCE
Date : 23/11/2007
La France  by Serge Bozon, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France on November 21rst.


Synopsis :
Spring 1917. Far away, war is raging. Miles from the front, Camille, a young woman, leads a peaceful life. One day, she receives a letter from the trenches from her husband: a brutal and succinct letter ending their relationship. Stopping at nothing, she decides to disguise herself as a man to go and find him. Following a chance encounter in a forest, she manages to join a small group of soldiers who do not suspect her true identity. She follows them, embarking on a new life and, as the days and nights pass, discovers what she could never have imagined, what her husband had never told her about and what her new companions will avoid revealing to her: France.

French Distributor : Shellac




Fehér tenyér (Les Paumes Blanches) by Szabolcs Hajdu, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 , is scheduled for theatrical release in France on November 21rst.

Synopsis :
Miklos Dongo is an Olympic gymnast whose career was ended by an injury. He comes to Canada to begin a new life as a coach. Miklos is assigned to train one of Canada�s most gifted young hopefuls. But the young man is vain and volatile and Miklos has difficulty establishing a rapport with him. Miklos comes to understand that if he is to establish a working relationship with the young man, he must overcome his own fears and confront his past, in which he suffered under the brutal training regimen of a diabolical coach.

French Distributor : Epicentre Films





Control  d'Anton Corbijn, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, is scheduled for theatrical release in France on September 26th.

Synopsis :
The life and death of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the legendary post-punk rock band, Joy Division. Torn between his family life, his growing fame and his love for another woman, Curtis committed sucide on May 18, 1980 at the age of 23, on the eve of Joy Division's first U.S. tour.
Without realizing it, Ian Curtis changed the face of rock music.

French Distributor : La Fabrique de films








Tout est pardonné by Mia Hansen-Løve, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, was scheduled for theatrical release in France on September 26th.

Un homme perdu by Danielle Arbid, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, was scheduled for theatrical release in France on September 19th.

La Question humaine by Nicolas Klotz, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, was scheduled for theatrical release in France on September 12th.

Caramel  by Nadine Labaki selected at Directors'Fortnight 2007, was scheduled for theatrical release in France on August 15th.
MACUNAIMA by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade
Date : 20/06/2007
Bresilian film Macunaima, one of the best film of NOVO cinema, selected at Directors'Fortnight 1970, is scheduled for theatrical rerun in France and DVD release.

Awarded as Best Film at Mar Del Plata Film Festival, Macunaima has been selected at Venizia Mostra. 

Theatrical rerun on June 20th, 2007

Synopsis :
The story begins with Macunaima's miraculous birth to an old woman in a tiny jungle settlement. Born full grown, he discovers his life's purpose which leads him and his family/followers on a journey to the Big City. On the way, more miracles occur, but Macunaima still has the heart and mind of a child. In the Big City, he is co-opted by terrorists who enlist him in their revolutionary schemes. In the Big City he learns that nuts are not always food and other hilarious lessons of life.

French Distributor and DVD Editor : Carlotta Films
Olivier Père's edito - Cannes 2007
Date : 03/05/2007

"More than ever this year, the Director' Fornight is brought to you under the auspices of discovery, audacity and emotion.

Among the 23 selections in this 39th Fortnight, you will find numerous first features, but also films by directors whose names mean little as of yet and whom we are proud to be introducing on the international scene.

First and foremost, we wished to share with the first Cannes audiences the excitement and enthusiasm that we felt while watching these unusual, deeply innovative, and personal films, ambitious and courageous both in form and content.

If intimate themes inform a good part of these films - shorts and features, fiction and documentary alike-- that of reality and its representations is no less constant, and this with a power and persistence that surprised us : "How do you capture feelings on film ?" seems to be the question nagging both young auteurs and veteran filmmakers. Other directors explored and experimented with rarely trod artistic paths to deal with the violence, paradoxical beauty and complexity of our times.

Once again, the angel of the bizarre spreads its wings over the Fortnight selection; once again, laughter, tears and thrills, esthetic epiphanies, critical reflections, that unique blend of dream and reality, strangeness and familiarity that are the cinema's domain, lead us a journey into the imagination of filmmakers to share their private vision of the world."
LA VIE SUR L'EAU by Mohammad Rasoulof
Date : 16/04/2007
DVD release of Mohammad Rasoulof's new film, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2005.

DVD Editor : Aventi


Synopsis :
Some poor people in the Southern coasts of Iran do not have any place to live, and thus, they reside on an old , abandoned ship in the sea. Captain Nemat, their chief, tries to persuade the ship-owner and the official authorities not get the ship back. On the other hand, he is selling the iron parts of the ship piece by piece. Soon the ship will sink.
DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT by Julia Loktev
Date : 04/04/2007
The first film of Julia Loktev selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 is scheduled for theatrical release in France.

Theatrical release on March 7th, 2007

Synopsis :
A 19-year-old girl  prepares to become  a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with no accent; it’s impossible  to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision - she has made it already. We don’t know whom she represents, what she believes in – we only know she believes it absolutely.

French Distributor : ID Memento Films

Olivier Père :
«Here a first film out of the commun run signed by an artist new yorkaise. Near to the visual and sound installation, Day Night Day Night is also a suspense film, and the splendid portrait of a young woman, at the same time opaque and transparent.»
QUINCENA DE LOS REALISATORES March 19-April 5 2007
Date : 03/04/2007
Buenos Aires pays tribute to the Directors’ Fortnight with screenings of 13 films from the Cannes selection (from 2003 to 2006), previously unseen in Argentina.

Co-organized by the Cinématica, the French Embassy in Argentina and the French periodical, Les Inrockuptibles, the program included such films as Christophe Honoré Dans Paris, Lisandro Alonso Los Muertos, Emmanuel Mouret Changement d’adresse as well as Jonathan Caouette Tarnation Screenings at the Teatro San Martin in Buenos Aires attracted more than 4,000 spectators.


Olivier Père:
« It is certainly no accident that this tribute to the Directors’ Fortnight took place in Buenos Aires: this is the city where, in the course my travels during these four exciting years, I met some of the people who came to play such an important role in my prospecting and cinephile friendships: Thomas Sonsino at the French Embassy, Quintin and Flavia who need no introductions, director Lisandro Alonso, whose Los Muertos was one of the highlights of the 2004 Fortnight, Luciano Monteagudo who first had the idea of this festival and whom I can never thank enough, and Mathieu Fournet, who has succeeded Thomas as audiovisual attaché and who worked hard to make this somewhat mad initiative a reality.
The Directors Fortnight has now become an annual rendezvous for film lovers the world over, located as it is in the heart of the most famous of film festivals, Cannes. There is no doubt that our enthusiasms, discoveries and crusades have found a receptive audience here, and the guarantee of knowing interest.
By choosing to screen a selection of French films selected for the Directors’ Fortnight since 2004, Luciano and I sought to throw a spotlight on films that for the most part have not been seen in Argentina, and which are some of the most original examples of new French cinema.»
DAFT PUNK'S ELECTROMA by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo & Thomas Bangalter
Date : 28/03/2007
The first film of Daft Punk selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 is scheduled for theatrical release in France.

Theatrical release on March 28th, 2007

Synopsis :
Daft Punk’s Electroma is a visual and musical odyssey about two robots and their quest to become human.

French Distributor : Wild Bunch

Olivier Pere :
«Electroma is a unique visual and sensory experience!»
LES ANGES EXTERMINATEURS by Jean-Claude Brisseau
Date : 20/03/2007
DVD release of Jean-Claude Brisseau 's new film, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006.

DVD Editor : Blaq Out

Synopsis : François, a filmmaker, is preparing a thriller.
During screen tests for a brief nude scene with an actress, he discovers the pleasure some women can have in the transgression of minor erotic taboos. Driven by the desire to contribute something new to the cinema, he decides to make a film that mixes fiction and reality and centers on something which unexpectedly becomes an enigma and a taboo: the minor transgressions that are a source of pleasure. His research into eroticism raises basic questions. But like Icarus approaching the sun, he only burns his wings.


Olivier Père (Artistic director) in Cannes :
«Jean-Claude Brisseau often attacks taboos. In La vie comme ça, one of his first films, Jean-Claude Brisseau was dealing with life in French suburbia. In De bruit et de fureur he dealt with delinquency, In his two last features  (Choses secrète and Les Anges exterminateurs) he took risks, he focuses on one of the biggest taboos: sex. In Les anges exterminateurs, he works on the mystery of woman sexual pleasure, not to provoke, but rather to explore and  to experiment, with the help of his young and gorgeous actresses.»
HONOR DE CAVALLERIA by Albert Serra
Date : 13/03/2007
The first film of Albert Serra selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 is scheduled for theatrical release in France.

Theatrical release on March 13th, 2007

Synopsis :
Trusting in fate, Don Quixote and Sancho pursue their travels in search of adventure day and night. They ride through fields, talking about subjects as varied as spirituality, chivalry and daily life. A growing bond of friendship unites them.

French Distributor : Cappricci Films

Maud Ameline (Selection committee)
« Shot in Calan and on location with non-professional actors, Honor de Cavalleria is a faithfull yet original adaptation of Cervantes Don Quixote.
It is also the discovery of a new film director who is extremely talented, free and courageous in his poetic vision of fim. In two words he is the enfant terrible of Spanish cinema we were all expecting.»
BUG by William Friedkin
Date : 20/02/2007
The new film of William Friedkin selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 is scheduled for theatrical release in France.

Theatrical release on February 21th, 2007

Synopsis :
A lonely waitress with a tragic past, Agnes rooms in a run-down motel, living in fear of her abusive, recently paroled ex-husband. But when Agnes begins a tentative romance with Peter, an eccentric, nervous drifter, she starts to feel hopeful again… until the first bugs arrive.

Distributor : Metropolitan Film Export

Olivier Père ( Artistic Director) :
«Movies such as The French connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Cruising, and To live and die in L.A , just to name the most famous films, are landmark  in contemporary American cinema. William Friedkin appears to be one of the most uncompromising and talented directors of New Hollywood. William Friedkin not only received Oscars and made blockbusters, he also invented another approach, between hyperrealism and hallucination, of crime film, horror film and adventure film.  William Friedkin has traumatised many generations of audience and influenced at lot of young directors. Bug, his new film, is very personal and original, shocking and disturbing. Bug is an obsessive film about obsession, a paranoiac film about paranoia.  It is probably the most radical and abstract film by William Friedkin. Once again he explores his favourite themes: Madness, hell, and the thin line between reality and nightmare, good and evil.»
CHANGEMENT D'ADRESSE by Emmanuel Mouret
Date : 31/01/2007
DVD release of Emmanuel Mouret 's third film, selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006.

French Distributor : France televisions distribution

Synopsis : David, a shy, awkward musician who has just moved to Paris, falls madly in love with his young student, Julia. He tries everything to win her heart. His room-mate, Anne, provides encouragement, advice and consolation... passionately!

Olivier Père (Artistic director) in Cannes :
«Two year ago, the directors’fornight ‘s audience was delighted with the film Vénus et Fleur. So we are very pleased to welcome again Emmanuel Mouret and his producer Frédéric Niedermayer, for this new comedy. Changement d’adresse combines elegance, humour, melancholy, and the same love for language, unexpected situations and very pretty actresses.»
12:08 EST OF BUCHAREST by Corneliu Porumboiu
Date : 12/01/2007

The first film of Corneliu Porumboiu selected at Directors'Fortnight 2006 and Caméra d'Or prizewinner is scheduled for theatrical release in France.

As part of Directors'Fortnight the film has also received the Europa Cinemas Label, since then it has won awards in many festivals (Copenhague, Sienne, Cinessonne, Zagreb...)


Theatrical release on January 10th, 2007


Synopsis :
December 22. It’s been sixteen years since the Revolution and Christmas is approaching.  Pisconi, an old retiree, is preparing to spend another lonely Christmas. Manescu, a history teacher, doesn’t want to lose his entire salary to pay his debts. Jderescu, the owner of the local TV station, doesn’t seem very interested in vacation. With Piscoci and Manescu’s help, he wants to find an answer to a sixteen-year-old question: “Did a revolution really take place in their city”?


French Distributor : BAC FILMS


Olivier Père (Directors'Fortnight Artistic Director)  :
« Still good news of the young Rumanian cinema, which definitely has not ceased surprising us for several years. 12:08 East of Bucharest, the first film of Corneliu Porumboiu, are an extremely original comedy which make us laugh great story with small stories, and a sharp-edged direction of the political satire.»