With a Canadian director on the Palme d’Or jury, more than 250 Canadian producers registered to attend the festival, plus a huge delegation of emerging talent in the house, Canada sure is looking lovely at Cannes this year!
From May 8 to 17, 2018, our Canada Pavilion at the 71st Cannes Film Festival will be busy and bustling with cool networking events, film screenings, emerging talent, and more! And you are cordially invited to join us! For all the juicy details on our Cannes action, and where to find us, click here.
But wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves… First things first!
1) Who’s on the jury?
A Canadian director is part of this year’s Palme d’Or jury! Quebec’s Denis Villeneuve will sit alongside eight other jurors and Cate Blanchett, who leads the jury this year. (A tidbit of Canadian Cannes trivia: during the past several years, several Canadians had the honour to be on the jury, including Donald Sutherland in 2016, Xavier Dolan in 2015, Sarah Polley in 2007, and in 1999, David Cronenberg led the jury.)
2) Directors’ Fortnight
Making its exciting international premiere in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight / Quinzaine des réalisateurs is Patrick Bouchard’s animation The Subject (Le sujet). Organised by the French Directors’ Guild, this independent section takes place alongside Cannes, and is now in its 50th year! Bouchard’s ten-minute short, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, is about an animator who dissects his own body, extracting memories, emotions and fears that will nurture his work.
3) Producers en masse
With more than 250 Canadian producers registered for Cannes, our networking presence around the famed croisette will be quite impressive, to say the least! To emphasize just how great our Canadian talent is, we’ve got a special spotlight on six selected Canadian producers, including five women.
They are:
- Valérie D’Auteuil, CARAMEL FILMS, Quebec
- Lauren Grant, CLIQUE PICTURES, Ontario
- Amber Ripley, GOODBYE PRODUCTIONS, British Columbia
- Jessica Adams, JA PRODUCTIONS, Ontario
- Yanick Létourneau, PERIPHERIA, Quebec
- Lori Lozinski, VIOLATOR FILMS, British Columbia
4) Perspective Canada
We’re ready to dazzle Cannes with Canadian perspective, with this selection of eight Canadian films (including seven market premieres!) financed by Telefilm Canada. Perspective Canada will screen at the Marché du Film. Don’t miss it! The selected films are:
- Xiaodan He’s A Touch of Spring
- Warren Sulatycky’s April in Autumn
- Patrick Condon’s Incredible Violence
- Zoe Hopkins’ Kayak to Klemtu
- Michael Peterson’s Knuckleball
- Raymond St-Jean’s Louise Lecavalier-In Motion
- Lowell Dean’s Supergrid
- Tristan Dubois’ The Fall of Sparta
5) 22 Canadian short films
Our Not Short on Talent program offers recent Canadian short films the opportunity to be seen by international festival programmers and buyers. This year’s curated selection of 22 new and engaging Canadian short films will be presented at the Short Film Corner, where our flicks can be viewed on demand! The selection is curated by programmer Danny Lennon (Prends ça court!) in Montreal.
6) Schmoozing opps!
Finally, don’t miss our networking and special events! We’ve got lots planned, including the Francophone Producers Coproduction Breakfast, Thursday May 10. Co-organised by francophone agencies, the breakfast welcomes 90 producers and is considered ideal for producers who want to build their international network.
Sunday May 13 is Frontières’ special Buyers Showcase event, featuring a screening of three Canadian film excerpts: G. Patrick Condon’s feature directorial debut Incredible Violence; newest film from established filmmaker Denis Côté, Ghost Town Anthology (Répertoire des villes disparues); and Jovanka Vuckovic’s first feature Riot Girls.
We also have events with Belgium, Luxemburg and Israel, and will open with the Canadian Producers Spotlight Breakfast on Monday May 14, and close with the annual Producers Network – Happy Hour which is sponsored by Telefilm, its Pavilion partners, and the SODEC. For the full scoop on these and our other special events, click here!
