It's that time of the year again. No, not exams or holidays. The annual Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most important filmfest in the world, will begin from the 11th of May.

 

After a lacklustre year, with Fareinheit 911 and Shrek 2 (?!) in competition, this year's list boasts an impressive selection from renowned directors. A glimpse at the films in competition easily reveals a lot of names familiar to me. David Cronenberg, American indie director. Dardenne brothers, famous for immigrant tales (?). Atom Egoyan, Canadian director from Turkey concerned about history. Michael Haneke, a previous Cannes winner for his Piano Teacher. Hou Hsiao Hsien, his retrospective currently showing at the Singapore Intl Film Festival, with his latest slow-moving gem. Jim Jarmusch, director of Coffee and Cigarettes . Gus Van Sant, another previous Cannes winner for Elephant. Lars Von Trier with the second part of his America trilogy, Manderlay. Wang Xiaoshuai, I watched his Beijing Bicycle before. Tommy Lee Jones directorial debut. Robert Rodriguez with his graphic violent Sin City. And finally, the last which I recognize is Johnnie To , with his latest HK triad flick Election. Out of the 20 films competing for the Palme d'Or (grand prize), I recognize 12 of the directors, which is kinda amazing since usually I can only recognize around 5 names in previous years.

 

Of course, with familiarity means there's less younger and new directorial debuts. Instead this year promises to be a shootout between the big guns. Not sure whether there will be an underdog stealing the show though.

 

As Cannes is a major event, there is more than one film list to go through. Other than the big competition, there are films that are not in competition. For instance, the last part of the Star Wars series will have its world premiere in Cannes. Woody Allen will be presenting his latest flick too. Another hyped about Korean film, A Bittersweet Life is showing in the Midnight section. Then there is also Seijun Suzuki's I-dunno-what-to-make-of-it Japanese period musical staring Zhang Ziyi, titled Princess Raccoon.

 

Wait... there's more! There's also a category in Cannes called Uncertain Regard. I am uncertain what this category is actually. Ok actually it showcases more cutting edge films I think, weirder films which will make you go wat the #:*!#$^. Opening this category will be Kim Ki Duk's The Bow. There is also Aoyama Shinji's film which I dun have the English translation, but there's Asano Tadanobu in it! There's also Ozon in it this year. Ok the rest of the directors I don't recognize, which truly speaks to the spirit of this category.

 

So all in all, this year's Cannes is super duper exciting. Oh wait I forgot to mention that Eric Khoo's new film after dunno how many years, will be opening the Director's Fortnight section... yes, yet another Cannes category. But the most sickening thing is that here in Singapore we will probably only get to watch some of those (very small percentage) after at least 6 months or so, if at all. I remember Kim Ki Duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring opened the Singapore Intl Film Festival last year when he had already shot 2 newer movies (both of which are showing in Singapore now, 1 year later)! That is how slow we get them here. Sigh no use complaining. As SW pointed out, we can get to watch them is good enough alreadi la. Truly a Singaporean.