E. Nina Rothe

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Cannes Film Festival announces Competition, Un Certain Regard titles and an honorary Palme d'or to Alain Delon

Alain Delon, photo courtesy of the Festival de Cannes

Updated to include new titles and closing night film on May 7th, 2019 — program now complete

As a young girl, I remember watching anything that had Alain Delon in it. I had a super crush on him and, lucky me, no film of his was deemed inappropriate by my parents. So along with Luchino Visconti’s ‘The Leopard’ and ‘Rocco and his Brothers’, I also caught Delon in films like ‘The Swimming Pool’, ‘Zorro’ and yes, even ‘The Concorde… Airport ‘79’. In fact, from the latter I required that a friend of the family who knew how to knit make me a royal blue crew neck wool sweater that looked just like his. I would find you a photo but I would have to watch that entire film all over again and well, I’ve moved on from my pre-pubescent crush. And my taste in film has highly improved.

But Alain Delon remains the fascinating man, the sultry sex symbol that could even steal women away from Mick Jagger. And this year’s he’s the Festival de Cannes honorary Palme d’Or recipient. Kudos to the festival for finally getting the reclusive actor to accept their coveted lifetime award.

Now onto the initial titles announced today in a press conference held by Cannes Film Festival General Delegate Thierry Frémaux and Pierre Lescure, the festival’s President. Of course, you’ve already heard about the opening night film for this edition of the festival, ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ by Jim Jarmusch, which will be in Competition.

The “Last Screening”, AKA the closing night film will be Olivier Nakache’s and Eric Toledano’s ‘The Specials’ starring Vincent Cassel and Reda Kateb.

Elia Suleiman, left, on the set of ‘It Must Be Heaven’ premiering in Competition in Cannes

Competition

‘Pain and Glory’ — Pedro Almodovar

‘The Traitor’ — Marco Bellocchio

‘The Wild Goose Lake’ — Diao Yinan

‘Parasite’ — Bong Joon-ho

‘Young Ahmed’ — Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne

‘Oh Mercy!’ — Arnaud Desplechin

‘Atlantique’ — Mati Diop

‘Matthias and Maxime’ — Xavier Dolan

‘Little Joe’ — Jessica Hausner

‘Sorry We Missed You’ — Ken Loach

‘Les Miserables’ — Ladj Ly

‘A Hidden Life’ — Terrence Malick

‘Bacurau’ — Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles

‘The Whistlers’ — Corneliu Porumboiu

‘Frankie’ — Ira Sachs

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ — Céline Sciamma

‘It Must Be Heaven’ — Elia Suleiman

‘Sibyl’ — Justine Triet

‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ — Quentin Tarantino

‘Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo’ — Abdellatif Kechiche

A still from ‘Papicha’ by Mounia Meddour, photo courtesy of the Doha Film Institute

Un Certain Regard

‘Invisible Life’ — Karim Aïnouz

‘Beanpole’ — Kantemir Balagov

‘The Swallows of Kabul’ — Zabou Breitman & Eléa Gobé Mévellec

‘A Brother’s Life’ — Monia Chokri

‘The Climb’ — Michael Covino

‘Joan of Arc’ — Bruno Dumont

‘A Sun That Never Sets’ — Olivier Laxe

‘Room 212’ — Christophe Honoré

‘Port Authority’ — Danielle Lessovitz

‘Papicha’ — Mounia Meddour

‘Adam’ — Maryam Touzani

‘Zhuo Ren Mi Mi’ — Midi Z

‘Liberte’ — Albert Serra

‘Bull’ — Annie Silverstein

‘Summer of Changsha’ — Zu Feng

‘Edge’ — Nariman Aliev

Diego Maradona, the subject of a new documentary by Asif Kapadia

Out of Competition

‘The Best Years of Life’ — Claude Lelouch

‘Rocket man’ — Dexter Fletcher

‘Too Old to Die Young’ (2 Episodes) — Nicolas Winding Refn

‘Diego Maradona’ — Asif Kapadia

‘Belle Epoque’ — Nicolas Bedos

Special Screenings

‘Share’ — Pippa Bianco

‘For Sama’ — Waad Al Kateab & Edward Watts

‘Family Romance, LLC’ — Werner Herzog

‘Tommaso’ — Abel Ferrara

‘To Be Alive and Know It’ — Alain Cavalier

‘Que Sea Ley’ — Juan Solanas

Midnight Screenings

‘The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil’ — Lee Won-Tae