By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca
Divining Cannes 2013: The Aggregating
Despite the Cannes Film Festival being only a short month away (and the festival’s Competition slate to be announced in less than a week), I’m filled with impatience to know the Official Selection.
Back in February, I wrote a piece (“Divining Cannes 2013”) which used the Festival’s history of vetting auteurs to collate a list of likely returning filmmakers. Over the past month or so, there have been articles across the web predicting and wishing—and yes, simply guessing—at which directors Thierry Frémaux will send a golden ticket to. I’ve read most all of them voraciously; comparing and contrasting lists to see if any dots connected. So the idea came to me: with a similar approach to my article in February, I took a leaf out of Nate Silver’s book (without any of the genius, mind you) and thought to aggregate ten of the most prominent Cannes predictions, tallying them up afterwards.
I’ve collected most every relevant prediction from Deadline, HitFix, Ioncinema, Cineuropa, Rope of Silicon, WhatCulture, Vodkaster, The Playlist, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter to illustrate which films were referenced the most (and which films were referenced the least). The top results weren’t terribly surprising; certain films are more or less guaranteed to be there. The lower down the list, however, the more interesting things became.
Before you read the aggregation, check out my personal list of predictions. I came up with them after studying the aggregated numbers for confirmation and looking at previous Festivals for trends (France typically has four or five in Competition; South Korea one or two. And so on). The aggregated list is raw data, but my predictions have a certain degree of rationale behind them, arbitrary or otherwise. For example, I expect Cannes to invite more women to vie for the Palme this year, given the goose egg they laid with 2012’s male-dominated Competition.
The Official Selection will be announced on April 18. The 66th Cannes Film Festival runs May 15-26.
Four weeks to go.
2013 Palme d’Or Slate—a personal prediction
(Titles listed by director’s native country.)
From Canada:
An Enemy—dir. Denis VILLENEUVE
Tom at the Farm—dir. Xavier DOLAN
From Chad:
Grisgris—dir. Mahamet-Saleh HAROUN
From Denmark:
Only God Forgives—dir. Nicolas WINDING REFN
From France:
A Castle in Italy—dir. Valeria BRUNI-TEDESCHI
Blood Ties—dir. Guillaume CANET
The Bastards—dir. Claire DENIS
Jimmy Picard—dir. Arnaud DESPLECHIN
Goodbye to Language 3D—dir. Jean-Luc GODARD
From Hong Kong / China:
Blind Detective—dir. Johnnie TO
From Iran:
The Past—dir. Asghar FARHADI
From Israel:
The Congress—dir. Ari FOLMAN
From Italy:
La Grande Bellezza—dir. Paolo SORRENTINO
From Japan:
Like Father, Like Son—dir. Hirokazu KOREEDA
From Korea:
Snowpiercer—dir. BONG Joon-ho
From Malaysia:
Diary of a Young Boy—dir. TSAI Ming-Liang
From the UK:
The Selfish Giant—dir. Clio BARNARD
Under the Skin—dir. Jonathan GLAZER
From the USA:
All is Lost—dir. J. C. CHANDOR
Inside Llewyn Davis—dir. Joel and Ethan COEN
Lowlife—dir. James GRAY
Nebraska—dir. Alexander PAYNE
Cannes Predictions 2013: An Aggregation
I mined Cannes predictions from 10 prominent websites and tallied them. While the Competition Slate is unlikely to pick more than two or three films from the lower lists, you can expect the Un Certain Regard Slate and the Director’s Fortnight Slate to include a swath of these lesser-buzzed films.
Some notes:
- HitFix‘s excellent Guy Lodge posted a Cannes “wish list,” not officially a predictions article. That said, it’s clear that plausibility was a limiting factor in Lodge’s picks, so I’ve included them regardless.
- Ioncinema‘s keen insight and incredible depth contributed to a majority of the once-mentioned films. The talented staff writers there have taken things a step further than other websites, so kudos to them for going the extra mile. Furthermore, Ioncinema has not yet finished compiling their predictions, so certain films on this list will slide north one slot during their final countdown.
- A few of these films (for example, Twelve Years a Slave, Blue Jasmine) have since been “confirmed” as “not coming.” In spite of this, I decided to include the so-called “not coming” films just the same.
- The Bling Ring was mentioned in nearly every article (9/10), but I didn’t put Coppola’s film in my Competition line-up. The film strikes me as the Un Certain Regard headliner.
The Aggregation
9 Mentions:
Only God Forgives – dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
The Bling Ring – dir. Sofia Coppola
Twelve Years A Slave – dir. Steve McQueen
8 Mentions:
Blood Ties – dir. Guillaume Canet
Inside Llewyn Davis – Joel and Ethan Coen
Lowlife – dir. James Gray
Only Lovers Left Alive – dir. Jim Jarmusch
The Past – dir. Asghar Farhadi
7 Mentions:
Behind the Candelabra – dir. Steven Soderbergh
Her – dir. Spike Jonze
Jimmy Picard – dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Nebraska – dir. Alexander Payne
6 Mentions:
Blue Jasmine – dir. Woody Allen
Goodbye to Language 3D – dir. Jean-Luc Godard
La Grande Bellezza – dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Night Moves – dir. Kelly Reichardt
5 Mentions:
The Bastards – dir. Claire Denis
Chavez – dir. Diego Luna
Like Father, Like Son – dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Under the Skin – dir. Jonathan Glazer
4 Mentions:
A Field in England – dir. Ben Wheatley
All is Lost – dir. J.C. Chandor
The Butler – dir. Lee Daniels
Blue is the Warmest Color – dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
The Congress – dir. Ari Folman
Snowpiercer – dir. Bong Joon-ho
Tom at the Farm – dir. Xavier Dolan
Venus in Fur – dir. Roman Polanski
The Young and Prodigious Spivet – dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
3 Mentions:
A los Ojos
A Nine-Minute Interval
Aga
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
An Enemy
Atilla Marcel
Abus de Faiblesse
Diary of a Young Boy
Dog Eat Dog
Fruitvale
Grand Central
Malavita
Monsters University
Nymphomaniac
Real
Star Trek Into Darkness
Un Chateau en Italie
White Bird in a Blizzard
2 Mentions:
Bird People
Blind Detective
Dau
Devil’s Knot
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
Eastern Boys
Gare du Nord
Grace of Monaco
Gravity
Grisgris
Happy Birthday
Hard to be a God
Jacky in Women’s Kingdom
Knight of Cups
Lilting
Michael Kohlhaas
Nude Area
Oktober November
Once Upon a Forest
Open Windows
Out of the Furnace
Panda Eyes
Quai d’Orsay
Reality
Rush
Salvo
The Selfish Giant
Suzanne
Tirez la Langue, Mademoiselle
Tip Top
We Come as Friends
You Are Here
The Zero Theorem
1 Mention:
3x3D
40 Days of Silence
A Perfect Day for Plesiosaur
About Cosmetics and Happiness
After Earth
The Assassin
At Berkeley
At the Manor
Barca
Berina’s Chakras
The Counselor
The Dance of Reality
Dark Touch
Diana
Disquiet
The Double
El Mudo
He Left on Sunday
Heli
Histoire de la Meva Mort
I’m So Excited
In the Basement
In Your Name
Just 17
The Last of the Unjust
L’inconnu du Lac
The Look of Love
Making Love
Manto Acuifero
Matar a un Hombre
The Militant
Mood Indigo
Mr. Kaplan
The Notebook
Our Sun-Hee
Oxhide III
Pacific Rim
Reykjavík
Serena
Shade & Light
Short Term 12
The Story of My Death
The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears
Straw Shield
The Two Faces of January
The Unknown Lake
Untitled London Project
Wakolda
Wolf
The Wolf of Wall Street