Cannes announces offi­cial selec­tion for its can­celled 2020 edition

True to the Cannes Film Festival’s spir­it of elite exclu­siv­i­ty, offi­cials have announced the line-up of films that would have played on the Croisette this year, had the fes­ti­val not been can­celed because of the ongo­ing pan­dem­ic. Now, even trav­el­ing press can expe­ri­ence this big news break the same way as the rest of the world: as a daz­zling array of movies you will not be allowed to see for a long time.

The biggest title comes as no sur­prise: Wes Ander­son​‘s lat­est, The French Dis­patch, had already been announced as a mar­quee debut for Cannes 2020, although he’s far from the only reg­u­lar who would’ve made a return to the banks of the Cote d’Azur. Such reg­u­lars as Fran­cois Ozon, Nao­mi Kawase, Steve McQueen (with his two small-screen projects for the BBC in tow), Im Sang-soo, Maïwenn and Thomas Vin­ter­berg were all men­tioned by name as invitees.

The rest of the line­up encom­pass­es small-time direc­tors, with a few notable stand­outs. Yeon Sang-ho, a break­out in 2016 for his zom­bie banger Train to Busan, was going to return with the sequel Penin­su­la. Hong Kong mav­er­ick John­nie To has a new one in the can, thought Cannes head hon­cho Thiér­ry Fre­maux didn’t divulge much detail.

For those more invest­ed in star wattage, note that Fran­cis Lee was going to pull back the cur­tain on his long-sim­mer­ing dra­ma Ammonite, a les­bian dra­ma fea­tur­ing Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet.

For the most part, how­ev­er, the line-up com­pris­es films minor enough to ben­e­fit from the lau­rel graph­ic con­ferred by Offi­cial Selec­tion. More con­cerned with gain­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion than sched­ul­ing a plum fes­ti­val slot lat­er in the year, emerg­ing film­mak­ers like Belgium’s Lucas Bel­vaux or Lebanon’s Jim­my Key­rouz stand to gain more from the Cannes seal of approval when attract­ing atten­tion from inter­na­tion­al buy­ers. Pixar’s new fea­ture Soul, also announced as a Cannes pick, will be fine.

Even so, it’s dif­fi­cult to dis­cern the point of today’s pro­ceed­ings, aside from main­tain­ing Cannes’ rep­u­ta­tion as the film fes­ti­val par excel­lence in a year when they will have to cede a num­ber of big-league titles to the fall sea­son. (If Venice, Toron­to and the rest move for­ward as planned, that is – and that’s still a trou­bling­ly big if.)

A full list of this year’s would-be Cannes line-up can be found here.