Cannes Film Festival Announces Director's Fortnight Lineup

Every May, the international film industry descends upon the French Riviera for the Cannes International Film Festival. Although the festival is largely a business event, where multi-million dollar movie deals go down on cocktail napkins in swanky hotel bars along the Croisette, a sidebar called the Director’s Fortnight (Quinzaine Des Réalisateurs en français) shows independent-minded films from all over the world in a non-competitive showcase. Especially covering fiction features, short films and documentaries, this sidebar is one place in Cannes to see new talent.

A foil to the serious official competition, the 41-year-old event sponsored by the French Director’s Society runs May 13-23 in Cannes to coincide with the world-famous official fest. This year’s lineup features 22 films from all over the world, including 11 by first-time directors. This year, artistic director Frederic Boyer didn’t want to choose films that showed at Sundance, thus all but one of the films presented will be world premieres.

Boyer announced this year’s “smart, vivacious, surprising, exciting, musical and focused on the world” full lineup Tuesday in Paris. The 10-day event opens with Benda Bilili !, a French documentary by directors Renaud Barret et Florent de la Tullaye about an orchestra comprised of disabled people. The red-carpet closing night will feature the viewing of Lily Sometimes, another French film about two sisters dealing with the death of their mother. The organization gives away the Carosse d’Or every year to a director who demonstrates “innovative qualities, courage and independent-mindedness of his or her work.” This year’s recipient is one of Paste‘s best living directors, Agnes Varda. Although the Director’s Fortnight is a competition, the films and directors are eligible for awards given by sponsors, including the Caméra d’Or presented by the official Cannes jury. Check out the full lineup below:

All Good Children dir. by Alicia Duffy (UK)
Benda Bilili! dir. by Renaud Barret, Florent de la Tullaye (France)
Cleveland vs. Wall Street dir. by Jean-Stephane Bron (France)
Des filles en noir dir. by Jean-Paul Civeyrac (France)
Everything Will Be Fine dir. by Christoffer Boe (Denmark-Sweden-France)
Illegal dir. by Olivier Masset-Depasse (Belgium-Luxembourg-France)
The Invisible Eye dir. by Diego Lerman (Argentina-France-Spain)
Joy dir. by Marina Meliande, Felipe Braganca (Brazil)
Le quattro volte dir. by Michelangelo Frammartino (Italy-Germany-Switzerland)
Leap Year dir. by Michael Rowe (Mexico)
The Light Thief dir. by Aktan Arym Kubat (Kyrgyzstan)
Lily Sometimes dir. by Fabienne Berthaud (France)
Little Baby Jesus of Flanders dir. by Gust Vandenberghe (Belgium)
Love Like Poison dir. by Katell Quillevere (France)
Picco dir. by Philip Koch (Germany)
Shit Year dir. by Cam Archer (U.S.)
The Silent House dir. by Gustavo Hernandez (Uruguay)
Tiger Factory dir. by Woo Ming-jin (Malaysia)
Todos vos sodes capitans dir. by Oliver Laxe (Morocco-Spain)
Two Gates of Sleep dir. by Alistair Banks Griffin (U.S.)
The Wanderer dir. by Avishai Sivan (Israel)
We Are What We Are dir. by Jorge Michel Grau (Mexico)