Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes), an independent selection running parallel to Cannes Film Festival, revealed the official selection of 20 feature and 10 short films for its 55th edition taking place May 17 to 26, 2023.
“The Directors’ Fortnight was born when a community of directors came together with the desire to create an independent space that would encourage the emergence of free filmmaking regardless of geographical provenance or any other limiting criteria. At the heart of the creation of the Directors’ Fortnight was the singular quality of a work of art and the impossibility of pigeonholing it.
We have chosen to present 30 films to you which, through their own unique language, embody a spirit of resistance to any form of ideology and to dominant narratives.” – artistic director, Julien Rejl.
2023 Directors’ Fortnight opens with Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, the drama film on the 1976 trial of Pierre Goldman, a real-life, left-wing revolutionary who was convicted of several armed robberies and then mysteriously murdered.
The section will close with Hong Sangsoo’s In Our Day, the drama film starring Kim Minhee as a woman in her early 40s, who is temporarily living at the home of a friend, who is raising a cat, and Ki Joobong as a man in his 70s living alone, whose cat has died of old age.
Short Films
AXXAM YAṚƔA, MAQAṚ ANSAḤMU (The House Is on Fire, Might as Well Get Warm / La maison brûle, autant se réchauffer)
by Mouloud Aït Liotna
DANS LA TÊTE UN ORAGE (A Storm Inside)
by Clément Pérot
IL COMPLEANNO DI ENRICO (The Birthday Party / L’Anniversaire d’Enrico)
by Francesco Sossai
J’AI VU LE VISAGE DU DIABLE (I Saw the Face of the Devil)
by Julia Kowalski
LEMON TREE
by Rachel Walden
MARGARETHE 89
by Lucas Malbrun
MAST-DEL
by Maryam Tafakory
OYU
by Atsushi Hirai
THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY
by Faris Alrjoob
XIA RI FU BEN (Talking to the River)
by Yue Pan
Feature Films
VAL ABRAÃO (Val Abraham / Abraham’s Valley)
by Manoel de Oliveira
Special screening
LE PROCÈS GOLDMAN (The Goldman Case)
by Cédric Kahn
Opening film
AGRA
by Kanu Behl
L’AUTRE LAURENS (The Other Laurens)
by Claude Schmitz
BÊN TRONG VỎ KÉN VÀNG (Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell)
by Thien An Pham
First feature film
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY (Merle merle mûre)
by Elene Naveriani
BLAZH (Grace / La Grâce)
by Ilya Povolotsky
First feature film
CONANN (She Is Conann)
by Bertrand Mandico
CREATURA
by Elena Martín Gimeno
DÉSERTS
by Faouzi Bensaïdi
IN FLAMES
by Zarrar Kahn
First feature film
LÉGUA
by Filipa Reis & João Miller Guerra
LE LIVRE DES SOLUTIONS (The Book of Solutions)
by Michel Gondry
MAMBAR PIERRETTE
by Rosine Mbakam
RIDDLE OF FIRE (Conte de feu)
by Weston Razooli
First feature film
THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED
by Joanna Arnow
First feature film
THE SWEET EAST
by Sean Price Williams
UN PRINCE (A Prince)
by Pierre Creton
XIAO BAI CHUAN (A Song Sung Blue)
by Zihan Geng
First feature film
WOO-RI-UI-HA-RU (In Our Day)
by Hong Sang-soo
Closing film