“Loving,” “The Neon Demon,” “The Handmaid” among Cannes Fest lineup

PanARMENIAN.Net - Jeff Nichols' inner-racial romance Loving will compete in Cannes this year, alongside Park Chan Wook's The Handmaid, Sean Penn's latest The Last Face and Daniel Blake, the latest, maybe last, feature from British veteran Ken Loach, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

Nicholas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon, a feature made for Amazon, also secured a Cannes competition slot. It will go up against Family Photos from Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), Sieranevada from fellow Romanian director Cristi Puiu, Paul Verhoven's Elle and two Filipino films: Aquarius from Kleber Mendonça Filho and Ma Rosa from Brillante Mendoza.

Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World, starring Léa Seydoux, Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel will screen in competition. Jim Jarmusch, another Cannes regular, returns this year with his latest, Paterson, featuring Adam Driver.

Pedro Almodovar's Julieta, Andrea Arnold's American Honey, The Unknown Girl from Belgium's Dardenne Brothers, two time Palme d'Or winners, and Olivier Assayas' Personal Shopper all made the Cannes competition cut. As did Slack Bay from French director Bruno Dumond, Staying Vertical from Alain Guiraudie and Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon. Marie Ade's Toni Erdmann, the fist German film to compete in Cannes for many year, closes out the 20-film competition lineup.

With Woody Allen’s star-studded Cafe Society already announced as the opening film for the 69th edition of the Cannes film festival, its head Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure on Thursday unveiled the fest's full lineup at a press conference in Paris. Allen's new film, which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively and Kristen Stewart, was also picked up by Amazon. Together with Neon Demon, they are the first films from online companies to get official screenings in Cannes.

For the first time this year, Cannes closing film will be the winner of the Palme d'Or. Fremaux called the decision "an experiment."

Stephen Spielberg's The BFG, featuring Mark Rylance as the voice of the titular Big Friendly Giant, will screen out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Jodie Foster's Money Monster starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, Shane Black's The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling and Matt Bomer and the Korean mystery thriller Goksung (The Wailing) from director Na Hong-Jin will also get out of competition slots this year.

Iggy Pop could make the trip to the Croisette this year, as the documentary Gimme Danger, directed by Jarmusch which looks at the singer and his legendary punk band, The Stooges, has also made the selection, out of competition. Gimme Danger will get a Midnight Screening slot in Cannes, as will Train to Busan from Yeon Sang-Ho.

Other special, out of competition screenings including The Last Resort from Thanos Anastopoulos and Davide Del Degan; Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy from director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun of Chad; the Cambodian film Exil from director Rithy Panh; The Last Days of Louis XIV from Albert Serra and Paul Vecchiali's The Cancer.

The Cannes festival's Un Certain Regard sidebar will include the Iranian drama Inversion, the film The Dancer from French director Stephanie Di Giusto starring Johnny Depp's daughter Lily Rose Melody Depp and Her actress Soko.

Mohammed Diab's Clash, the animated feature The Red Turtle, Japanese drama Personal Affairs, Hirokazu Koreeda's After the Storm, Argentine film The Long Night from director Francisco Marquez, Dogdan Mirica's Dogs, Russian drama The Disciple and Captain Fantastic starring Viggo Mortensen are among the Un Certain Regard highlights this year.

Fremaux kicked off the announcement at a theater on the French capital's famous Champs Elysees just after 11 a.m. local time. The press conference was delayed by a silent protest by film theater workers and students against proposed reforms to France's labor laws. Before starting the press conference, Fremaux and Lescure expressed their support for the protestors.

As previously announced, Mad Max director George Miller will serve as president of the jury, and jury prize winner Naomi Kawase is set to head the short film and student competition jury. The full competition jury is expected to be announced next week, with the Un Certain Regard jury set to be revealed during the first week of May.

The poster for this year's edition takes inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard’s film about the film business, Contempt.

The Cannes festival runs May 11-22.