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

 

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I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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