Largo Winch: The Heir Apparent

Jerome Salle's Largo Winch: The Heir Apparent (France, 2008) - thriller set in high finance corporate culture, an heir must fight for his rights against greed corporate leader after his father was assassinated. RATING ** 1/2

RIP Kaneto Shindo

Japanese director Kaneto Shindo died of natural causes in the morning hours of May 29 at the age of 100, local media has reported. His Film highlights include Children of Hiroshima (52), The Naked Island (60), Onibaba (64) and Kuroneko (68)

Gangs of Wasseypur

GREAT MOVIES: Anarag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur (India, 2012) - Though it runs at over five hours, there’s never a dull moment in this Indian gangland epic by one of India’s hottest indie directors, Anurag Kashyap. Oozing visual style, laced with tight and often blackly comic dialogue, bolstered by tasty performances and a driving neo-Bollywood soundtrack, this Tarantino-tinged Bihari take on The Godfather has what it takes to cross over from the Indian domestic and Diaspora markets to reach out to action-loving, gore-tolerant theatrical and auxiliary genre audiences worldwide. 2012CANdf, 2012TOR, 2013SUN. RATING: 9

The Repentant

MUST SEE: Merzak Allouache's The Repentant (Algeria, 2012) - Former jihadist who try to have new starts in life cross path with a separated couple, whose daughter , he help kidnap and murder five years earlier. Official Selection 2012 Cannes Directors' Fortnight. RATING *** 1/2.

The King of Pigs

MUST SEE: Yuen Sang Ho's The King of Pigs (South Korea, 2011) - a brutal look at long lasting effect of high school bullying are explore in this South Korean Anime with the most graphic violence imaginable on display. The film premiere at the 2011 Busan Film festival where it won the NETPAC Award and Best Director Award. The film also selected for 2012 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight section. RATING *** 1/2

2012 Cannes Film Festival Winners

Michael Haneke's Love won Palm d'Or at 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Matteo Garrone's Reality won Grand Prix at 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Carlos Reygadas won Best Director for Post Tenebras Lux at 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Cristian Mungiu's Beyond The Hills won Best Screenplay Award at 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Ken Loach's The Angel's Share won The Jury Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Best actress was shared by Beyond The Hills co-stars Cosmina Stratan and Christina Flutor.

Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor Award in Tomas Vinterberg The Hunt at 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of The Southern Wild is the Camera d'Or Winner at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

2012 Cannes FIPRESCI Prize Winner

Sergei Loznitza's In The Fog won FIPRESCI Prize for 2012 Cannes Film Festival In Competition Section

Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of The Southern Wild won FIPRESCI Prize for 2012 Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Section

Rachid Djaidani's Hold Back won FIPRESCI Prize for 2012 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight Section

2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Winner

Michel Franco's after Lucia (Mexico, 2012) won Best Film 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Section.

Benoit Delepine's Le Grand Soir won 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize winner.

Suzanne Clement won 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Actress Award for Laurence Anyways

Emilie Dequenne won 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Actress Award for Loving Without Reason.

Aida Begic's Djeca / Children won 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard Special Distinction of The Jury Award.

Ishaqzaade

COMING SOON: Habib Faisal's Ishaqzaade (India, 2012) - Rising from the ashes of hooliganism and small town clan wars, comes the love story of a passion ignited by hatred stars new comer Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra.

2012 Cannes Directors' Fortnight Winner

The Repentant, an Algerian/French drama from director Merzak Allouache about a young terrorist seeking redemption, has won the Europa Cinemas Label prize for Best European film running in Cannes' official line-up. The film premiered in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight sidebar.

Pablo Larrain's No (Chile, 2012) won The Art Cinema award Best Film 2012 Cannes Directors' Fortnight

The Prix SACD for a French-language project went to Camille Rewinds (Camille redouble) by Noemie Lvovsky.

2012 CANNES Critics Week Winner

Antonio Mendez Esparza's Aqui y Alla (Mexico, 2012) - The film centres around a man who returns to his mountain village in Mexico after having lived in the U.S for years won 2012 CANNES Critics Week Grand Prize.

Ilian Metev's Sofia's Last Ambulance (Bulgaria, 2012) - The film that follows three overworked paramedics in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia is the wiiner of 2012 Cannes Critics Week Visionary Prize winner

Meni Yaesh's God's Neighbor (Israel, 2012) The theological thriller about religious fanaticism won 2012 Cannes Critics Week SACD Award

Alejandro Vadel's The Wild Ones (Argentina, 2012) - about five teenagers who escape a reformatory school in an Argentinean province won 2012 Cannes Critics Week ACID/CCAS Award

2012 SHANGHAI FILM FESTIVAL LINE UP

Karen Shakhnazarov's White Tiger

Golden Goblet Award (first 10 films):
Chrysalis, Paula Ortiz (Spain)
Color Of Sky, Dr. Biju Damodaran (India), International premiere
Excuse Me, Henrik Ruben Genz (Denmark)
For The Love Of God, Micheline Lanctôt (Canada), Asia premiere
I, Anna, Barnaby Southcombe (UK/Germany/France)
Isztambul, Ferenc Torok (Hungary/Holland/Ireland/Turkey)
Rat King, Petri Kotwica (Finland), Asia premiere
Stars Above, Saara Cantell (Finland), Asia premire
The Conductor, Pavel Lungin (Russia), International premiere
White Tiger, Karen Shakhnazarov (Russia), International premiere
Asian New Talent Award:
Big Blue Lake – Jessey Tsang (Hong Kong)
Boy’s Diary –Putrama Tuta (Indonesia)
The Client – Sohn Young-sung (Korea)
Corrode –Karan Gour (India)
Follow, Follow – Peng Lei (China)
I Have Loved – Lai Weijie, Elizabeth Wijaya (Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore)
Michael – Ribhu Dasgupta (India)
Pearls Of The Far East – Cuong Ngo (Vietnam, Canada)
Pick The Youth – Chen Ta-pu (Taiwan)
Sweet Eighteen – He Wenchao (China)

Our Children

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Joachim Lafosse's Our Children (Belgium, 2012) - Our Children is called A Perdre La Raison in France, and viewers can quickly make the connection when its opening shots depict four small coffins being raised onto a plane bound for Morocco as a mother weeps in her hospital bed. It’s immediately clear that Joachim Lafosse is about to tackle one of cinema’s, and society’s, last taboos, the increasing numbers of parents who murder their own small children. SOURCE: SCREEN.

For Love's Sake

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Takashi Miike's For Love's Sake (Japan, 2012) - Any fears that Takashi Miike might be mellowing with age are roundly dispelled by For Love’s Sake (Ai To Makoto). This deliriously daft romantic epic unfolds with a mixture of dynamic gang rumbles, sadistic slapstick violence and showstopping high camp musical numbers that would not seem out of place at a Eurovision gathering. SOURCE: SCREEN.

Sightseers

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Ben Wheatley's Sightseers (UK, 2012) - Sightseers is a blissful bit of dark, funny and at times very bloody entertainment as a pair of caravanning killers head off on a road trip through the beautiful tourist spots of the British Lake District and end up amassing as many bodies as visits to tourist sites. It is an often-hilarious British comedy horror that should click with audiences with a taste for pitch black comedy. SOURCE: SCREEN.

White Elephant

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Pablo Trapero's White Elephant (Argentina, 2012) - By taking an insider perspective on the slums of Buenos Aires, Pablo Trapero returns to the social concerns established in earlier films such as Leonera (which bedded down in a womens’ prison). White Elephant, a well-made and involving - if not dramatically revolutionary - drama, brings a gritty immediacy to the Hidden City where priests Julian (Ricardo Darin) and Nicolas (Dardennes brothers mainstay Jeremie Renier) wage a futile battle for its inhabitants’ salvation. SOURCE: SCREEN.

The Angel's Share

2012 CANNES HIGHLIGHT: Ken Loach's The Angel's Share (UK, 2012) - The tried and trusted partnership of Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty has created one of their warmest and most accessible films in The Angel’s Share. The grim statistics behind Britain’s “lost generation” of unemployed and unemployable young people have been transformed into a heartwarming, social-realist fairytale with enough rowdy humour and sweet sentiment to appeal to Loach’s dedicated global followers and beyond. SOURCE: SCREEN.

Killing Them Softly

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly (US, 2012) - A deliciously stylish hard-boiled crime drama, Andrew Dominik’s violent and bleakly funny film is a grimly nihilistic film that revels in its harsh and brutal urban landscape. Writer/director Andrew Dominik makes great use of the widescreen format and fills his film with visual quirks to sit alongside the smartly written dialogue, and working again with Brad Pitt (the pair made 2007’s The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) has come up with a remarkably pertinent crime film that reflects the tough times facing America. SOURCE: SCREEN.

After Lucia

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Michel Franco's After Lucia (Mexico, 2012) - Mexican director Michel Franco's grim drama delivers an unflinching example of the high-school bullying phenomenon at its worst.  SOURCE: THR

Marion Cotillard

Early 2013 Oscar Buzz from Cannes Film Festival: Marion Cotillard in Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone

Maddened by His Absence

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Sandrine Bonnaire's Maddened by His Absence (Luxembourg, 2012) - A tale of inconsolable grief sensitively told from a bizarre angle, Maddened By His Absence (J’enrage de son absence) is carried beautifully by a downright haunted William Hurt. If ever a character fit the description “There’s method in his madness,” Hurt’s Franco-American Jacques, who returns from Boston to Paris to settle several layers of family business, is it. SOURCE: SCREEN.

2012 Variety's 10 Euro Filmmakers to Watch

Tim Fehlbaum's Hell

"Black Pond," Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley, U.K. - Oddball comic drama in which an ordinary family is accused of murder when a stranger dies at the dinner table.

"Either Way," Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, Iceland - Two highway maintenance men in the barren wilderness of 1980s Iceland find themselves at a figurative crossroads. ***

"Hasta la vista," Geoffrey Enthoven, Belgium -  a fictional account of Asta Philpot's real-life trips to a wheelchair-accessible Spanish brothel and his advocacy of prostitution.

"Hell," Tim Fehlbaum, Germany-Switzerland - Post-apocalyptic survival tale

"Hemel," Sacha Polak Netherlands - Berlin Fipresci winner follows the sexual odyssey of a young woman.

"Iron Sky," Timo Vuorensola, Finland - comic sci-fi yarn of moon-based Nazis.

"Jackpot," Magnus Mertens, Norway - Black comedy adapted from a Jo Nesbo story.

"This Life," Anne Grethe Bjarup Riis, Denmark - Historical drama set during WWII about the resistance movement in German occupied Denmark.

"Trip, A," Nejc Gazvoda, Slovenia - Three best pals from high school remember the past and confront their fears about the future.

"Wrinkles" Ignacio Ferreras, Spain - 2D toon set in an old folks' home.

In Another Country

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Hong Sang Soo's In Another Country (South Korea, 2012) - Echoes of the French New Wave resound all through this cute, light-hearted three-part romantic romp, which reads like a series of vignettes inspired by the encounter of Isabelle Huppert and the people and landscapes of South Korea. Yet another loving tribute by Hong Sangsoo to French cinema, somewhere between inconsequential and flimsy but pleasant to watch all through, In Another Country (Da-Reun Na-ra-e-suh) will charm both film students and their tutors, who will feast on the exercises of cinema language the film offers and over-analyse the use of identical dramatic ingredients in the three episodes that are much less separate than they pretend to be.  

Sapphires

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Wayne Blair's Sapphires (Australia, 2012) - An energetic, amusing and resolutely feel-good-film-with-a-message, 1960s music movie The Sapphires ticks all of the right boxes to click with audiences as well as being a smart advert for Aussie girl power. It is a film with soul at its heart and some great tunes to back up its simple – and rather old-fashioned – story to great effect. SOURCE: SCREEN.

A Respectable Family

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Massoud Bakhshi's A Respectable Family (Iran, 2012) - A college professor returns to Iran after 22 years in Massoud Bakhshi’s striking feature debut A Respectable Family, which deftly blends suspense and social commentary to deliver an acerbic commentary on today’s Tehran. Bakhshi’s invigorating and accessible drama is a doubtless performer for Pyramide International, and should turn festival exposure into solid arthouse business.

Beyond The Walls

2012CANNES HIGHLIGHT: David Lambert's Beyond The Walls (Belgium, 2012) Charting the rise and fall of a love affair from giddy beginnings to rueful afterglow, Beyond The Walls (Hors Les Murs) marks an accomplished first feature from writer/ director David Lambert. An intriguing storyline, confident execution and charismatic performances from the lead actors carry the film through some unexpected plot developments that push it towards more stereotypically anguished gay movie romances. The first half comes closer to the tone of Andrew Haigh’s award winning Weekend and might give the film a shot at a similar audience. Further Festival appearances and interest from specialist gay distributors seems guaranteed.

Augustine

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Alice Winocour's Augustine (France, 2012) - The complex relationship between 19th-century neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and one of the most famous "hysterics" he treated is charted with intelligent nuance in "Augustine," an impressive debut for Gallic writer-helmer Alice Winocour. Anchored by two intense, intertwined perfs by veteran Vincent Lindon and relative newcomer Soko, a musician who also composed the pic's growling, atmospheric score, this period drama offers a coolly febrile study of madness, Victorian sexual politics and power. Fests are likely to treat this well, and the film could pick up patients in need of its cerebral arthouse medicine as a niche release offshore. Star Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni.

La Sirga

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: William Vega's La Sirga (Colombia, 2012) - A slow-burn Andean fable of considerable evocative power, William Vega’s first feature is the latest in an impressive string of Colombian arthouse films that includes Los Viajes del Vento and El Vuelco del Cangrejo (on which Vega worked as assistant director). Set on the remote La Cocha lake high up in the mountains of south-western Chile, this is a film that overcomes the occasional mannered art-film cliché to weave a dreamlike elegy about a war-torn part of Colombia that is at the same time a nicely underplayed coming-of-age story.

Horses of God

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Nabil Ayouch's Horses of God (Morocco, 2012) - The seeds of fundamentalist martyrdom are sown in the dirt-poor lives of young men raised in the slums of Morocco in Horses Of God, a thoughtful, compelling adaptation of the Mahi Binebine novel The Stars Of Sidi Moumen. Inspired by the 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, the film follows two brothers over the course of a decade as they make the life-changing decisions that will lead them to become Islamist martyrs.

The Hunt

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (Denmark, 2912) - An energised Thomas Vinterberg powers into a rural Danish community with devastating effects in The Hunt, a confident return to form - and some familiar themes - for the co-writer-director. Daring to force his narrative right up against the edge of credibility, Vinterberg uses the hot-button topic of child abuse to push and probe at a town’s close-knit facade until the wounds bubble up angrily to the surface. As an added marketing bonus, Mads Mikkelsen ("Casino Royale") is effectively cast against type in the lead.

Love

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Michael Haneke's Love (France, 2012)  - Old age remains the great taboo of cinema, with only a very few films daring to tackle the topic seriously ‹ among them, some true classics such as Tokyo Story and Make Way For Tomorrow. Love (Amour) is a more than worthy addition. As one expects from Michael Haneke, it is a sober, rigorous piece, and a magnificent collaboration with two veteran actors, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant. It is true to say the pair give the performances of a lifetime, in that no other roles could possibly require them so directly to work with their own mortality and physical fragility. They rise formidably to the challenge. SOURCE: SCREEN.

Student

CANNES 2012 HIGHLIGHT: Derezhan Omirbayev's Student (Kazakhstan, 2012) A roughly faithful adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," despite its setting in contempo Almaty, Kazakh filmmaker Darezhan Omirbayev's "Student" unspools a stark, Bressonian tale of a young man who commits an almost random act of murder. With its deadpan perfs, retro visual style and crime-story plot, the pic almost feels like an Aki Kaurismaki movie but without the jokes or rockabilly music, just the despair. "Student" is bound to study abroad at fests, especially given Omirbayev's reputation (after "Killer") as one of Kazakhstan's most accomplished helmers, but distribution will be minimal beyond the CIS and Germany, where so many Russian-speakers reside. SOURCE: VARIETY.