By Hindustan Times
A guessing game has become as annual a ritual because the Cannes Film Festival, which this year starts on May 16, a rather delayed kick-off so as to not clash with the French presidential election.
Some weeks before the official lineup is announced by Cannes (this year on April 19) in Paris, speculations begin flying. India contributes its share of presumptions.
A few days ago, Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal said he can be happy if Madhur Bhandarkar's Heroine and Sudhir Mishra's Inkaar travel to the French Riviera Festival. The flicks need to be there, he felt. Did someone on the Festival whisper this in Rampal’s ears? After the “leaked” list business the opposite day – angrily denied by the Festival Director – Rampal’s statement can also be viewed as pure conjecture or wishful thinking.
Readers may needless to say Bhandarkar and Aishwarya Rai had announced the launch of Heroine at Cannes last year. (Weeks later, Rai was found to be pregnant, and a livid Bhandarkar needed to choose another star.) Was Rampal hoping that a film launched at Cannes had greater probabilities of being included within the Festival?
Unfortunately, this would possibly not always be the case. Mani Ratnam announced Raavan/Raavanan (Hindi/Tamil) at Cannes, however it was picked up by Venice.
There is a buzz about two other movies: Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur with Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddique (who played Intelligence Bureau officer Khan in Kahaani) and Richa Chadda (Dolly in Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!) and Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai with Abhay Deol, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Emraan Hashmi and Kalki Koechlin.
I am sure there are lots of other films within the race for Cannes.
Outside India, probables are being touted. It's quite likely that Walter Salles’ adaptation of the 1957 Jack Kerouac novel that defined the Beat generation, At the Road, and David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, the screen version of Don DeLillo's novel a few fateful day within the lifetime of a rich financier may find berths on the Festival. The Brad-Pitt- starrer-Andrew-Dominik-helmed Cogan’s Trade, and Jacques Audiard’s (remember his Oscar-nominated A Prophet) suspenseful romance with Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone, are being considered.
Will John Hillcoat’s Lawless (at the Great Depression) and Derek Cianfrance’s Where Beyond the Pines (with Ryan Gosling, whose Drive was a success finally Cannes) be out of the labs to satisfy the Festival deadline?
The other names and titles spoken about include Michael Haneke’s Amour (starring Isabelle Huppert) and Ken Loach’s The Angel’s Share. Both directors are past Palm d’Or winners – Haneke with The White Ribbon and Loach with The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
Now what about American cinema: listed below are the contenders: James Gray with Low Life, Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly and Ridley Scott with Prometheus.
The French team can have Alan Resnais' Vous n'avez encore rien vu, with Mathieu Almaric, Leos Carax' Holly Motors (starring Denis Lavant, Michel Piccoli, Kylie Minogue and Eva Mendes), and Francois Ozon's Dans La Masion, with Kristin Scott Thomas.
The Asian grapevine has these offerings: Stocker by Korea’s Park Chan-wook, Like Someone in Love by the Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, and The Land of Hope by Japan’s Sono Sion.
All these are big names, and it probably a lot of them could be at the Croisette.
