Cannes: 'Un Certain Regard' and 'Cinéfondation' Winners

At Cannes the "Competition" titles get most of the press but there's another competition that runs parallel each year which often hides films that are just as strong --some years critics argue that they're stronger. Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) presided this year over the jury judging the 19 films in "Un Certain Regard." That's the program Cannes officials often throw distinctive or high quality films from newer filmmakers in since they reserve the main competition for (mostly) legendary auteurs or Cannes mainstays. 

UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZE

THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF EURIDICE GUSMAO (Karim Aïnouz, Brazil)
We first started tracking this picture because it's from the queer Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz who made Futuro Beach, a movie that we liked at the time but obviously undervalued as it really lingers in the memory (I still find myself thinking about it regularly 5 years later). His new film, which won the hearts of Labaki and her jury, also features the legendary Fernanda Montenegro but hers is, alas, a supporting role...

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Cannes 2019 Un Certain Regard Lineup

We already dove into the Cannes Competition Lineup so it's time to look at the other most famous program, Un Certain Regard, which tends to be where a lot of the edgier titles from younger directors go. Some years people actually think this program beats the main competition for quality (since the main competition generally defaults to the "masters," regardless of whether or not they happen to be having a strong year).

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Fernanda Montenegro in "Invisible Life"

Here is a bit about all that titles in Un Certain Regard. These films won't get quite as much buzz in May UNLESS they break out and the familiar refrain begins "Why wasn't this in the main competition?" You know how Cannes critics do...

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Review: "The Death of Louis XIV"

by Bill Curran

Laying in regal and rotting repose, the glorious tendrils of a white M-shaped wig framing his ashen face, King Louis XIV of France, in the year 1717, spends his final days dying atop luxurious satins and attended to by hand-wringing bureaucrats and a largely silent wife in Albert Serra’s (you guessed it) The Death of Louis XIV.

As far as “death trip” movies go, Louis XIV is a quintessential ordeal. Like moths around the flame, the films in this still-thriving trend announce the demise (or prolonged distress) of their subjects up front, with imminence and duration the focus, often with a titular clue to the narrative framework: The Passion of the Christ, Last Days, 12 Years a Slave, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, 127 Hours, Day Night Day Night, Hunger, Two Days, One Night, and Son of Saul, to name but a few...

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