Farhadi’s drama, ‘A Hero’, in pipeline for Cannes festival comeback

TEHRAN. (Iranart) –The two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi’s Farsi-language drama, ‘A Hero,’ whose plot is kept secret, was presented to Cannes’ selection committee.

After last year’s cancelation, the Cannes Film Festival is expected to be back with a bang in July. Even with a small supply of US films, the 2021 edition should be in no shortage of major auteurs, female directors, and glamorous stars, according to Variety.

Professional Iranian actors Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Nader Shahsavari, Fereshteh Sadre-Orafaee, and Sarina Farhadi star in Farhadi’s ‘A Hero’.

As expected and scheduled, Farhadi’s ninth production, which officially entered the pre-production stage in June, finished after 75 shooting sessions.

The world sales of ‘A Hero’ began by Paris-based Memento Films International in February during the European Film Market in Berlin.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Memento Films International, the French production and sales outfit that has collaborated with Farhadi on three of his films (‘The Salesman,’ ‘A Separation,’ and ‘Everybody Knows’), shopped the project to buyers in Berlin, circulating an English-language version of Farhadi’s original Farsi script.

Farhadi screened all his works, including ‘The Past,’ ‘The Salesman’ and ‘Everyone Knows’ at the Cannes Film Festival, and most likely the film, ‘A Hero,’ will also experience its world premiere at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

‘A Separation,’ his closely observed divorce drama from 2011, which premiered in Berlin and won the Golden Bear for Best Film, and swept the acting honors, grossed some $23 million worldwide, including more than $7 million in the US. The movie went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film in 2012. Farhadi repeated the feat in 2016 with ‘The Salesman,’ with the director grabbing headlines for famously declining to attend the Academy Awards celebration in protest of former President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries.

Farhadi’s last film was the Spanish-language mystery thriller, ‘Everybody Knows,’ which opened the Cannes Film Festival and stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.

In addition to the already announced fest opener ‘Annette,’ Leos Carax’s musical romance with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, two other titles strongly tipped for Cannes is Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’ and ‘Official Competition,’ a comedy reuniting Spanish stars Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz. The Spanish-language film is directed by the Argentinian duo Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat.

Among the several films that were in the running for last year’s festival and are either confirmed or nearly confirmed for the 2021 edition is Kirill Serebrennikov’s (‘Leto’) ‘Petrov’s Flu,’ about a day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia. There’s also Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s English-language debut ‘Memoria,’ with Tilda Swinton starring as an orchid farmer visiting her ill sister in Bogota where she is bothered by increasingly loud bangs that prevent her from getting any sleep.

After a year of subdued festival activity, Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux has a bounty of other anticipated movies from big-name auteurs to choose from.

Weerasethakul could be one of a handful of Palme d’Or-winning directors in the pipeline for a comeback on the French Riviera, along with Ruben Östlund with ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ a contemporary satire with Woody Harrelson starring as a rabid Marxist who is the captain of a cruise for the super-rich that sinks, leaving survivors, including a fashion model celebrity couple, marooned on an island; Jacques Audiard’s black-and-white film ‘Paris, 13th District,’ based on New Yorker cartoonist Adrian Tomine’s ‘Killing and Dying,’ and revolving around four young adults who are friends.

As in 2019, which saw Mati Diop and Celine Sciamma shine in competition, the 2021 competition roster could include several strong French female helmers, notably Julia Ducournau with the horror drama ‘Titane,’ her follow-up to ‘Raw,’ with Vincent Lindon starring as a father whose son resurfaces at an airport after having disappeared for 10 years; Claire Denis with ‘Feu,’ which stars Juliette Binoche; Mia Hansen-Løve with ‘Bergman Island,’ a supernatural melodrama with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth, and Vicky Krieps, about a couple of American filmmakers who travel to the Swedish island of Faro to write their respective films; and Emmanuelle Bercot (‘Standing Tall’) with ‘De Son Vivant,’ a drama spanning a year in the lives of a terminally ill man, a grieving mother, a doctor and a nurse, starring Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel and Cécile de France.

This year’s official selection, or even the competition, could also boast ‘Where Is Anne Frank,’ a long-gestated animated feature by Ari Folman, whose 2008 doc ‘Waltz with Bashir’ debuted in competition.

Other movies from renowned filmmakers that are well-positioned to world premiere at Cannes 2021 include Joachim Trier’s ‘The Worst Person in the World’; Bruno Dumont’s ‘On a Clear Half Morning’ with Lea Seydoux and Blanche Gardin, about a celebrity journalist whose life is turned upside down by a freak car accident; and Francois Ozon’s (‘Summer of 85’) ‘Tout s’est bien passé,’ a euthanasia-themed film based on Emmanuelle Bernheim’s book by the same name, with Sophie Marceau.

Cannes Film Festival’s official selection will be unveiled on May 27. The festival, which is scheduled to run July 6-17, said it was planning its next edition “with confidence and determination” while being “mindful of the evolution of the public health situation in Europe and across the world, and the reopening of cultural venues mid-May.”

While the country is currently on semi-lockdown with a curfew set at 7 p.m., President Emmanuel Macron recently said during a televised address that some cultural venues could reopen in mid-May. According to several sources, cinemas could potentially reopen between May 15-20, with a seating capacity limited to 35 percent. The limitation would be gradually lifted to 65 percent and 100 percent depending on the evolution of the pandemic. Cannes is a traditional launchpad for movies, and some theatrical releases are already being planned by distributors, notably the cinema company UGC with ‘Annette’ set for a simultaneous release on July 6.

After a very slow start, the pace of the vaccine roll-out has gotten much quicker in recent weeks, which is bringing some optimism throughout the country. As of April 22, 20 percent of people in France have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The festival is working hand-in-hand with Cannes authorities to hammer out health protocols. Some health measures being studied include setting up testing stations throughout the city, as well as around the Palais des Festivals, the main moviegoing hub.

As previously announced, Spike Lee will preside over the competition jury.

Source: Iran Daily