62nd Festival de Cannes - The Competition

Directed by: Michael HANEKE
Country: GERMANY, AUSTRIA, FRANCE, ITALY
Year: 2009
Duration: 144 minutes

SYNOPSIS
A village in Protestant northern Germany.
1913-1914. On the eve of World War I.
The story of the children and teenagers of a choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers.
Strange accidents occur and gradually take on the character of a punishment ritual.
Who is behind it all?

MICHAEL HANEKE

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - DAS WEISSE BAND (THE WHITE RIBBON) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2005 - CACHÉ (HIDDEN) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2003 - LE TEMPS DU LOUP - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay
2001 - LA PIANISTE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2000 - CODE INCONNU - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1997 - FUNNY GAMES - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1994 - 71 FRAGMENTE EINER CHRONOLOGIE DES ZUFALLS - Section parallèle - Director
1992 - BENNY'S VIDEO - Section parallèle - Director
1989 - DER 7 KONTINENT - Section parallèle - Director

AWARDS
2009 - Palme d'Or - DAS WEISSE BAND (THE WHITE RIBBON) - Long métrage
2005 - Award for Best Director - CACHÉ (HIDDEN) - Long métrage
2001 - Grand Prix - LA PIANISTE - Long métrage

Directed by: Jacques AUDIARD
Country: FRANCE
Year: 2009
Duration: 150 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Condemned to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena cannot read nor write. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang who rules the prison, he is given a number of "missions" to carry out, toughening him up and gaining the gang leader’s confidence in the process. But Malik is brave and a fast learner, daring to secretly develop his own plans...

JACQUES AUDIARD

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - UN PROPHÈTE (A PROPHET) - In Competition - Director
1996 - UN HÉROS TRÈS DISCRET - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1994 - REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER - Section parallèle - Director

AWARDS
2009 - Grand Prix - UN PROPHÈTE (A PROPHET) - Long métrage
1996 - Award for the Best Screenplay - UN HÉROS TRÈS DISCRET - Long métrage

Directed by: Brillante MENDOZA
Country: FRANCE, PHILIPPINES
Year: 2009
Duration: 100 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Peping, a criminology student, is recruited by his schoolmate, Abyong, to work as a part-time errand boy for a local syndicate that collects protection fees from various businesses in Manila. The easy money Peping earns is spent mostly on his girlfriend, Cecille, who’s also a student. Peping decides to marry her, but in order to do so he’ll need more money. Abyong contacts Peping to join a "special project" that pays more than normal...

BRILLANTE MENDOZA

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - KINATAY - In Competition - Director
2008 - SERBIS - In Competition - Director

AWARDS
2009 - Award for Best Director - KINATAY - Long métrage

Directed by: LOU Ye
Country: HONG KONG, FRANCE
Year: 2009
Duration: 115 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Nanjing, 2009.

Luo Haitao has been hired by Wang Ping’s wife to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man, but slowly loses control of the situation. With his beautiful girlfriend, Li Jing, he is drawn in to the affair, overcome by the fever of drunken spring nights. All are possessed by an exhilarating madness of the senses, a dangerous malady that leads the heart and head astray...

LOU YE

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - CHUN FENG CHEN ZUI DE YE WAN (Spring Fever) - In Competition - Director
2006 - SUMMER PALACE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Film Editor
2003 - PURPLE BUTTERFLY - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Film Editor

AWARDS
2009 - Award for Best Screenplay - CHUN FENG CHEN ZUI DE YE WAN (Spring Fever) - Long métrage

Directed by: Lars VON TRIER
Country: DENMARK, GERMANY, FRANCE, SWEDEN, ITALY
Year: 2009
Duration: 104 minutes

Award for Best Actress, 2009
Charlotte GAINSBOURG

SYNOPSIS
A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse...

LARS VON TRIER

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - ANTICHRIST - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2007 - CHACUN SON CINÉMA (TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) - Out of Competition - Director
2005 - MANDERLAY - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2003 - DOGVILLE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2000 - DANCER IN THE DARK - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1998 - IDIOTERNE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Cinematography
1996 - BREAKING THE WAVES - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1991 - EUROPA - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1987 - EPIDEMIC - Un Certain Regard - Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Actor
1984 - THE ELEMENT OF CRIME - In Competition - Director, Screenplay

AWARDS
2000 - Palme d'Or - DANCER IN THE DARK - Long métrage
1996 - Grand Prix - BREAKING THE WAVES - Long métrage
1991 - Grand Prix de la Commission Supérieure Technique - EUROPA - Long métrage
1991 - Jury Prize - EUROPA - Long métrage
1984 - Grand Prix de la Commission Supérieure Technique - THE ELEMENT OF CRIME - Long métrage

Directed by: Quentin TARANTINO
Country: GERMANY, USA
Year: 2009
Duration: 148 minutes

Award for Best Actor, 2009
Christoph WALTZ

SYNOPSIS
In the first year of the German occupation of France, Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema.

Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine organizes a group of Jewish American soldiers to perform swift, shocking acts of retribution. Later known to their enemy as "The Basterds", Raine’s squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...

QUENTIN TARANTINO

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2007 - MAN OF CINEMA: PIERRE RISSIENT - Cannes Classics - Actor
2007 - DEATH PROOF - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Director of Photography, Actor
2004 - KILL BILL VOL.2 - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay
2004 - Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION - Out of Competition - Actor
1995 - DESPERADO - Out of Competition - Actor
1994 - PULP FICTION - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1992 - RESERVOIR DOGS - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay

AWARDS
1994 - Palme d'Or - PULP FICTION - Long métrage

MEMBER OF THE JURY
2004 - Sélection officielle - Président

Directed by: Andrea ARNOLD
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Year: 2009
Duration: 124 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Fifteen year old Mia’s life is turned on its head when her Mum brings home a new boyfriend.

ANDREA ARNOLD

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - FISH TANK - In Competition - Director
2006 - RED ROAD - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1998 - MILK - Section parallèle - Director

AWARDS
2009 - Jury Prize - FISH TANK - Long métrage
2006 - Jury Prize - RED ROAD - Long métrage

Directed by: PARK Chan-Wook
Country: KOREA (South)
Year: 2009
Duration: 133 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Sang-hyun is a beloved and admired priest in a small town, who devotedly serves at a local hospital. He goes to Africa to volunteer as a test subject in an experiment to find a vaccine to the new deadly infectious disease caused by Emmanuel Virus (E.V.). During the experiment, he is infected by the E.V. and dies. But transfusion of some unidentified blood miraculously brings him back to life, and unbeknownst to him, it has also turned him into a vampire.

After his return home, news of Sang-hyun's recovery from E.V. spreads and people start believing he has the gift of healing and flock to receive his prayers. From those who come to him, Sang-hyun meets a childhood friend named Kang-woo and his wife Tae-ju. Sang-hyun is immediately drawn to Tae-ju.

Tae-ju gets attracted to Sang-hyun, who now realizes he has turned into a vampire, and they begin a secret love affair. Sang-hyun asks Tae-ju to run away with him but she turns him down. Instead, she tries to involve Sang-hyun in a plot to kill Kang-woo...

PARK CHAN-WOOK

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - BAK-JWI (THIRST) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2004 - OLD BOY - In Competition - Director, Screenplay

AWARDS
2009 - Jury Prize - BAK-JWI (THIRST) - Long métrage
2004 - Grand Prix - OLD BOY - Long métrage

Directed by: Isabel COIXET
Country: SPAIN
Year: 2009
Duration: 109 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Ryu is a solitary girl whose fragile appearance is in stark contrast with the double life she leads, working nights at a Tokyo fishmarket and sporadically taking on jobs as a hit-woman.

Mr Nagara is a powerful impresario mourning the loss of his daughter Midori, who has committed suicide. He blames David, a Spaniard who runs a wine business in Tokyo.

Mr Nagara's employee, Ishida, was silently in love with Midori and hires Ryu to murder David.

A sound engineer, obsessed with the sounds of the Japanese city and fascinated with Ryu, witnesses this love story which searches the shadows of the human soul, reaching deep into places where only silence has the power of eloquence.

ISABEL COIXET

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - MAP OF THE SOUNDS OF TOKYO - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2006 - PARIS, JE T'AIME - Un Certain Regard - Director

AWARDS
2009 - Vulcain Prize for an artist technician, awarded by the C.S.T. - MAP OF THE SOUNDS OF TOKYO - Long métrage

Directed by: Alain RESNAIS
Country: FRANCE
Year: 2008
Duration: 104 minutes

SYNOPSIS
A wallet lost and found opens the door - just a crack - to romantic adventure for Georges and Marguerite.

ALAIN RESNAIS

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - LOIN DU VIETNAM (FAR FROM VIETNAM) - Cannes Classics - Director
2009 - LES HERBES FOLLES (WILD GRASS) - In Competition - Director
2002 - JE T'AIME JE T'AIME - Tribute - Director
1980 - MON ONCLE D'AMÉRIQUE - In Competition - Director
1974 - STAVISKY - In Competition - Director
1968 - JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME - In Competition - Director
1959 - HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR - In Competition - Director
1957 - TOUTE LA MÉMOIRE DU MONDE - In Competition - Director, Film Editor
1947 - PARIS 1900 - In Competition - Screenplay

AWARDS
2009 - Lifetime achievement award for his work - LES HERBES FOLLES (WILD GRASS) - Long métrage
1980 - International Critic's Prize by the F.I.P.R.E.S.C.I. - MON ONCLE D'AMÉRIQUE - Long métrage
1980 - Jury's Special Grand Prix - MON ONCLE D'AMÉRIQUE - Long métrage

Directed by: Pedro ALMODÓVAR
Country: SPAIN
Year: 2009
Duration: 129 minutes

SYNOPSIS
A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car crash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he didn’t lose only his sight, he also lost Lena, the love of his life.

This man uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym with which he signs his literary works, stories and scripts, and Mateo Blanco, his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. After the accident, Mateo Blanco reduces himself to his pseudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films he can only survive with the idea that Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena.

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (BROKEN EMBRACES) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2006 - VOLVER - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2004 - LA MALA EDUCACIÓN (BAD EDUCATION) - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay
1999 - TODO SOBRE MI MADRE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay

AWARDS
2006 - Award for Best Screenplay - VOLVER - Long métrage
1999 - Award for Best Director - TODO SOBRE MI MADRE - Long métrage

MEMBER OF THE JURY
1992 - Sélection officielle - Membre

Directed by : Marco BELLOCCHIO
Country: ITALY
Year: 2009
Duration: 128 minutes

SYNOPSIS
There is a secret in the life of Mussolini: a wife and a son, who was born, acknowledged and then denied. The secret bears a name: Ida Dalser. It is a dark page in history, one ignored in the official biography of the Duce.
When Ida meets Mussolini in Milan, he is the editor of Avanti and an ardent Socialist who intends to guide the masses towards an anti-clerical, anti-monarchical, socially emancipated future. Ida already had a fleeting encounter with him in Trento and remained thunderstruck.

Ida truly believes in him and his ideas: Mussolini is her hero. In order to finance Popolo d’Italia, a newspaper he has founded and the nucleus of the forthcoming Fascist Party, Ida sells everything she has: her apartment, her beauty salon, her furniture and jewelry.

MARCO BELLOCCHIO

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - VINCERE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2006 - IL REGISTA DI MATRIMONI - Un Certain Regard - , Director, Screenplay
2002 - "L'ORA DI RELIGIONE" (IL SORRISO DI MIA MADRE) - In Competition - Screenplay, Director
1999 - LA BALIA - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1997 - IL PRINCIPE DI HOMBURG DI HEINRICH VON KLEIST - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1994 - IL SOGNO DELLA FARFALLA - Un Certain Regard - Screenplay, Director
1986 - DIAVOLO IN CORPO - Section parallèle - Director
1984 - ENRICO IV - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1980 - SALTO NEL VUOTO - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1977 - IL GABBIANO - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay

MEMBER OF THE JURY
2007 - Sélection officielle - Membre

Directed by: Jane CAMPION
Country: UNITED KINGDOM, AUSTRALIA
Year: 2008
Duration: 120 minutes

SYNOPSIS
London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, an outspoken student of fashion. This unlikely pair started at odds; he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. It was the illness of Keats’s younger brother that drew them together. Keats was touched by Fanny’s efforts to help and agreed to teach her poetry. By the time Fanny’s alarmed mother and Keats’s best friend Brown realised their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations, "I have the feeling as if I were dissolving", Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats’s illness proved insurmountable.

JANE CAMPION

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - BRIGHT STAR - In Competition - Director
2007 - CHACUN SON CINÉMA (TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) - Out of Competition - Director
2007 - MAN OF CINEMA: PIERRE RISSIENT - Cannes Classics - Actor
2006 - THE WATER DIARY - Out of Competition - Director, Screenplay
1993 - THE PIANO - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1989 - SWEETIE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1986 - PEEL - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1986 - A GIRL'S OWN STORY - Un Certain Regard - Director, Screenplay
1986 - PASSIONLESS MOMENTS - Un Certain Regard - Director, Screenplay, Cinematography
1986 - 2 FRIENDS - Un Certain Regard - Director

AWARDS
1993 - Palme d'Or - THE PIANO - Long métrage
1986 - Palme d'Or - Short Film - PEEL - Court métrage

Directed by: Xavier GIANNOLI
Country: FRANCE
Year: 2008
Duration: 150 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Based on the true story of a smalltime crook who built a highway.

XAVIER GIANNOLI

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - À L'ORIGINE (IN THE BEGINNING) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
2006 - QUAND J'ÉTAIS CHANTEUR (THE SINGER) - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1998 - L'INTERVIEW - In Competition - Director, Screenplay

AWARDS
1998 - Palme d'Or - Short Film - L'INTERVIEW - Court métrage

Directed by: Ang LEE
Country: USA
Year: 2009
Duration: 120 minutes

SYNOPSIS
It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, the El Monaco. The bank is about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the
insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents. When Elliot hears that a neighbouring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbour's farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and popular culture, forever.

ANG LEE

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - TAKING WOODSTOCK - In Competition - Director
2000 - CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON - Out of Competition - Director
1997 - THE ICE STORM - In Competition - Director
1994 - EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN - Section parallèle - Director

Directed by: Ken LOACH
Country: UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE, ITALY, BELGIUM, SPAIN
Year: 2009
Duration: 116 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Eric the postman is slipping through his own fingers...

His chaotic family, his wild stepsons and the cement mixer in the front garden don’t help, but it is Eric’s own secret that drives him to the brink. Can he face Lily, the woman he once loved 30 years ago? Despite outrageous efforts and misplaced goodwill from his football fan mates, Eric continues to sink.

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend from foreign parts to challenge a lost postman to make that journey into the most perilous territory of all - the past.

As the Chinese, and one Frenchman, say:
"He who is afraid to throw the dice will never throw a six."

KEN LOACH

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - LOOKING FOR ERIC - In Competition - Director
2007 - CHACUN SON CINÉMA (TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) - Out of Competition - Director
2006 - THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY - In Competition - Director
2002 - SWEET SIXTEEN - In Competition - Director
2000 - BREAD & ROSES - In Competition - Director
1998 - MY NAME IS JOE - In Competition - Director
1995 - LAND AND FREEDOM - In Competition - Director
1993 - RAINING STONES - In Competition - Director
1991 - RIFF-RAFF - Section parallèle - Director
1990 - HIDDEN AGENDA - In Competition - Director
1981 - LOOKS AND SMILES - In Competition - Director
1980 - THE GAMEKEEPER - Un Certain Regard - Director, Screenplay
1979 - BLACK JACK - Section parallèle - Director
1972 - FAMILY LIFE - Section parallèle - Director
1970 - KES - Section parallèle - Director

AWARDS
2006 - Palme d'Or - THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY - Long métrage
1993 - Jury Prize - RAINING STONES - Long métrage
1990 - Jury Prize - HIDDEN AGENDA - Long métrage
1981 - Prix du cinéma contemporain au Festival International du Film - LOOKS AND SMILES - Long métrage

Directed by: Gaspar NOÉ
Country: FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY
Year: 2009
Duration: 150 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Oscar and his sister Linda are recent arrivals in Tokyo. Oscar's a small time drug dealer, and Linda works as a nightclub stripper. One night, Oscar is caught up in a police bust and shot. As he lies dying, his spirit, faithful to the promise he made his sister that he would never abandon her - refuses to abandon the world of the living. It wanders through the city, his visions growing evermore distorted, evermore nightmarish. Past, present and future merge in a hallucinatory maelstrom.

GASPAR NOÉ

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - ENTER THE VOID - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Film Editor
2006 - SIDA - Out of Competition - Director, Cinematography, Film Editor
2002 - IRRÉVERSIBLE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editor
1998 - SEUL CONTRE TOUS - Section parallèle - Director
1996 - LA BOUCHE DE JEAN-PIERRE - Un Certain Regard - Cinematography
1991 - CARNE - Section parallèle - Director

Directed by: Elia SULEIMANM
Country: FRANCE, BELGIUM, ITALY, UNITED KINGDOM
Year: 2009
Duration: 109 minutes

SYNOPSIS
THE TIME THAT REMAINS is a semi biographic film, in four historic episodes, about a family -my family - spanning from 1948, until recent times.
The film is inspired by my father’s diaries of his personal accounts, starting from when he was a resistant fighter in 1948, and by my mother’s letters to family members who were forced to leave the country since then.
Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labeled « Israeli-Arabs », living as a minority in their own homeland.

ELIA SULEIMANM

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - THE TIME THAT REMAINS - In Competition - Director, Screenplay, Actor
2007 - CHACUN SON CINÉMA (TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) - Out of Competition - Director
2002 - YADON ILAHEYYA - In Competition - Actor, Screenplay, Director

AWARDS
2002 - Jury Prize - YADON ILAHEYYA - Long métrage

MEMBER OF THE JURY
2006 - Sélection officielle - Membre

Directed by: Johnnie TO
Country: HONG KONG
Year: 2009
Duration: 108 minutes

SYNOPSIS
A father comes to Hong Kong to avenge his daughter, whose family was murdered.

Officially, he’s a French chef.

Twenty years ago, he was a killer.

JOHNNIE TO

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - VENGEANCE - In Competition - Director
2007 - TRIANGLE - Out of Competition - Director
2006 - ELECTION 2 - Out of Competition - Director
2005 - ELECTION - In Competition - Director
2004 - BREAKING NEWS - Out of Competition - Director

Directed by: TSAI Ming-Liang
Country: TAIWAN, FRANCE, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS
Year: 2009
Duration: 138 minutes

SYNOPSIS
A Taiwanese filmmaker makes a film based on the myth of Salomé at the Louvre. Even though he speaks neither French nor English, he insists on giving the part of King Herod to the French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. To give the film a chance at the box-office, the production company gives the role of Salomé to a world famous model. But problems arise as soon as filming begins...

Amidst all this confusion, the director suddenly learns of his mother’s death.
The producer flies to Taipei, to attend the funeral. The director falls into a deep sleep where his mother’s spirit does not seem to want to leave her old apartment. The producer has no choice but to wait, alone and lost in a strange city.

As after a very long voyage, filming will resume with all who were lost in the underground of the Louvre.

TSAI MING-LIANG

FILMS PRESENTED IN CANNES
2009 - VISAGE (FACE) - In Competition - Director
2007 - CHACUN SON CINÉMA (TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA) - Out of Competition - Director
2001 - NI NEI PIEN CHI TIEN - In Competition - Director, Screenplay
1998 - THE HOLE - In Competition - Director, Screenplay