Atom Egoyan's Adoration named one of 19 finalists for Palme d'Or Award

PanARMENIAN.Net - Atom Egoyan's new film, Adoration, was named yesterday one of the 19 finalists that will be in competition next month for the prestigious Palme d'Or Award at the 61st annual Festival de Cannes.



The film's inclusion in Official Selection marks the sixth time that a feature film from the Victoria-raised, Toronto-based director's work has made the cut.



Reached yesterday, Egoyan said it was "an honor" to be included, adding "this is not something I take for granted." "Especially with this movie. It's a more intimate film. It's very much rooted in this culture and I'm so proud to represent the country at this level."



The previous Egoyan titles in the running for the Palme d'Or include Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Felicia's Journey (1999) and Where the Truth Lies (2005). Ararat, his 2002 film about the Armenian genocide, was an Official Selection in Cannes as well.



The 19-strong competition lineup includes projects from veteran directors including Clint Eastwood's Changeling, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Le Silence de Lorna, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas's Linha de Passe, Wim Wenders's The Palermo Shooting, and Steven Soderbergh's four-hour biopic, Che, about Sixties revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara.



"It's always a little overwhelming when you look at the competition," Egoyan noted of his fellow filmmakers. "Having been on the jury there as well, however, it begins to make more sense once you're in the middle of it. From the outside, it seems a little crazy to just throw all these movies together, but they are selected quite carefully. There's an internal logic that you don't really get until you're actually there."



The Cannes' committee only screened Adoration this past weekend. Egoyan and his colleagues found out they would be vying for the Palme d'Or a few days ago.



Yesterday, Adoration's co-producers Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss said they were "thrilled" to get the news. "We certainly hoped it would happen," said the co-founders of Toronto's Film Farm, "and Cannes was the place we wanted the film to go. But because we were so late submitting it - and because there seems to be a lot of great films out there right now - we still weren't sure."]



Urdl, who started as Egoyan's production assistant in 1991, added "I don't think you can ever take these things for granted. People assume - because it's Atom and he has such a long history [with Cannes] - that he'll get in. But that's not the case.



"Adoration is quite different than his last couple of films. And the head of the Cannes festival had changed. So we truly weren't sure, and to get in, was really exciting news."



Weiss says Adoration - a film shot in Toronto last fall for about $5.5-million - was a nice change of pace for Egoyan. "For him, going back to this budget and scale was liberating. There's simply not the same pressure to make a big, splashy film with big stars. So we have an ensemble cast, and the discovery of a new actor (Devon Bostick) who is only now 16 and plays the lead. All those elements, meant Atom got to have fun. It's an extremely personal film for him, without external pressure."



Adoration focuses on one young man's fascination with the possibility he's the spawn of two historical figures - and how his personal obsession is both enabled, and threatened, by technology.



The film also stars Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, Kenneth Welsh, and Arsinée Khanjian (Egoyan's wife).



The director says his screenplay grew out of a true-life story he'd heard 20 years ago about a young man who convinced his pregnant Irish girlfriend to board a flight, carrying a bomb that she didn't know had been planted on her. "This story - or a version of it - is read in the main character's high school and it triggers his imagination," Egoyan explains.



The film is executive produced by Robert Lantos's Serendipity Point Films, and will be distributed by his company Maximum Film.



"This is the seventh time I've gone to Cannes in competition," Lantos said yesterday. " ... Maybe this time, we'll be seven times lucky and get the Palme d'Or," theglobeandmail.com reports.