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The Cnc will also be supporting films by Léa Mysius, Kaouther Ben Hania, Sébastien Marnier, Olivier Babinet, Renaud Barret, Davy Chou and Javier Rebollo, as well as four feature debuts. Eight projects were selected at the 2nd 2020 session of the Cnc’s second advance on receipts committee. Standing out among them is Incroyable Mais Vrai which will be the 9th feature film by Quentin Dupieux after, among other titles, Rubber (Cannes’ Critics’ Week 2010), Wrong (Sundance 2012), Wrong Cops (Piazza Grande in Locarno 2013), Reality (Orizzonti in Venice in 2014), Deerskin (Directors’ Fortnight 2019) and Mandibles. Incroyable Mais Vrai is set to star Alain Chabat, Léa Drucker, Benoît Magimel and Anaïs Demoustier. The script centres on Alain and Marie as they move to the banlieue house of their dreams. But the real estate agent did warn them: whatever is in the basement may very well change their lives… Handled by...

If you think you know street art because you’ve seen a few works by Banksy or Shepard Fairey, then you should take a look at the immersive documentary System K (Systeme K), which follows several Kinshasa artists who bring the medium to a whole new level.

Directed and shot by the French-born Renaud Barret, whose music doc Benda Bilili! played Cannes in 2010, this eye-opening and often eye-popping exposé tracks an emerging wave of Congolese creators whose vibrant, sometimes disturbing works are far more provocative than the kind of street art that now fetches millions at Christie’s or Sotheby’s....

If you think you know street art because you’ve seen a few works by Banksy or Shepard Fairey, then you should take a look at the immersive documentary System K (Systeme K), which follows several Kinshasa artists who bring the medium to a whole new level.

Directed and shot by the French-born Renaud Barret, whose music doc Benda Bilili! played Cannes in 2010, this eye-opening and often eye-popping exposé tracks an emerging wave of Congolese creators whose vibrant, sometimes disturbing works are far more provocative than the kind of street art that now fetches millions at Christie’s or Sotheby’s....

The final Panorama selection includes 45 films from 38 countries, including 34 world premieres.

The final titles for the 2019 Berlin Film Festival (Feb 7-17) Panorama programme have been revealed.

Among the new additions is Light Of My Life, directed by and starring Casey Affleck and co-starring Elisabeth Moss.

Titles revealed back in December include Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, Seamus Murphy’s Pj Harvey documentary A Dog Called Money and Rob Garver’s documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael.

The final Panorama selection includes 45 films from 38 countries, including 34 world premieres. There are 29 features, 16 documentaries and 19 directorial debuts.

The full list...

Kevorkian, Shoval, Haq, Fiennes, Sigurðsson, Nikonova and Runarsson heading to Les Arcs European Film Festival with upcoming projects.Scroll down for full list of projects

The UK’s Johnny Kevorkian and Sophie Fiennes, Israeli Tom Shoval, Norwegian Iram Haq and Russia’s Angelina Nikonova will be among the filmmakers presenting their upcoming projects at the Les Arcs Co-Production Village this year.

The event, running Dec 13-16 within the Les Arcs European Film Festival (Dec 13-20), will present 25 projects in development and a further 10 Works-in-Progress.

“I thinks it’s a good sign that filmmakers whose projects we presented in development are now coming back to show their films in Work-in-Progress, which is the case for Sparrow and Rams,” said Les Arcs industry head Vanja Kaludjercic.

“Conversely, we’ve got directors who presented in Works-in Progress, such as Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, who came with Paris of the North last year, who is back with his new project The Tree...

"When French filmmakers and music lovers Renaud Barret and Florent de La Tuyalle landed in the Congo in 2004 with the intention of recording some local music," writes Ernest Hardy in the Voice, "they had no idea that their dream would take five years, grow to include a documentary film, and be centered on four paraplegic musicians, three able-bodied ones, and the homeless boy (a self-taught music wunderkind with a homemade string instrument) they took in."

David DeWitt in the New York Times: "The documentary Benda Bilili!, in French and Lingala, captures five years in the lives of this intergenerational street band, five years in which the buskers move from practicing at the decaying Kinshasa zoo to performing for enraptured crowds on the strength of their album, Très Très Fort, French for 'Very Very Strong' — which they are."

In Slant, Andrew Schenker finds that "the film's inquiry into the artistic method...

The 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (Viff) is starting to finally announce their roster of films with an outstanding line-up of documentaries that celebrate the power of cinema and the arts across the Dance, Music, Theatre and the Visual Arts mediums. Legendary filmmakers Wim Wenders , Frederick Wiseman, and Mike Figgis are among the talent presenting films at the festival this year which runs from September 29-October 14th. Here is a taste of what to expect so far:

Pina

Germany/France/UK | Director: Wim Wenders

One German master more than does justice to another as Wim Wenders fashions a kinetic and gorgeous tribute to the singular German choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch. “Entertainment that will send culture vultures swooning… the film lets the artist’s work speak for itself via big, juicy slabs of performance.” — Variety

Flamenco, Flamenco

Spain | Director: Carlos Saura

Carlos Saura continues to mine a rich vein...

Black Swan; Biutiful; The Next Three Days; Benda Bilili!; The Ward; Gulliver's Travels

It's hard to keep up with the genetic origins and influences of Darren Aronofsky's Oscar-winning Black Swan (2010, Fox, 15), a full-blooded psychodrama in which Natalie Portman's uptight "sweet girl" must embrace her dark side to play the dual lead in Swan Lake. Early scenes owe a debt to the choreographed ordeals of A Chorus Line, giving way gradually to the ghosts of Powell and Pressburger's dance of death The Red Shoes. Barbara Hershey seems to be channelling the spirit of Joan Crawford as the ballerina's suffocating mother, while Cronenberg's The Fly looms large as Portman's nails crumble and her shoulders sprout feathers, hotly pursued by the fractured personality riffs from Lynch's Mulholland Drive.

But by far the strongest DNA strain comes from Italian giallo maestro Dario Argento, specifically Suspiria and Terror and the Opera, which...

Submarine (15)

(Richard Ayoade, 2010, UK/Us) Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor. 97 mins

Ayoade evidently did his homework before stepping behind the camera, swotting up on everything from the French New Wave to The Graduate to Wes Anderson, but the result is a fresh and distinctly British-flavoured coming-of-ager, full of provincial frustrations and recognisable types. The story takes few risks – an intelligent Welsh schoolkid's quest for self-definition and sexual adventure – but Submarine works hard to earn our affections with a mix of sincerity, energy and impeccable comic timing.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (12A)

(Woody Allen, 2010, UK/Us) Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Gemma Jones. 98 mins

The ever-scrappier Allen observes life's frivolities with a bemused but cheerless eye in a London comedy whose great cast compensates for the fatalistic outlook.

Route Irish (15)

(Ken Loach, 2010, UK/Fra/Ita/Bel/Spa) Mark Womack, Andrea Lowe, John Bishop. 109 mins

Loach considers the physical...

The music doc "Benda Bilili!" by French directors Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barret will be distributed in the U.S. in fall 2011 by National Geographic Cinematic Ventures. The film follows a band from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Staff Benda Bilili (translation: "Look Beyond"), made up of four paraplegics and three able-bodied men. The film premiered at Cannes's Director's Fortnight, received a Cesar nomination for best documentary and ...

To say that Benda Bilili! could be this year's Buena Vista Social Club is a lazy parallel, but it's a lazy parallel that's not about to be looked in the face, gift-horse style. Both are musical docs that leave you with the warm and fuzzies; both are rags-to-riches tales; and both are chock full of songs that may be unfamiliar to begin with but will rattle around your brain for weeks afterwards. A musical documentary made by a pair of French filmmakers, Benda Bilili! was serendipitous from the outset. Graphic artist Renaud Barret arrived in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa in 2004 planning to spend ten days with his girlfriend. While he was there he ran into Staff Benda Bilili, a group of street musicians, many polio-stricken, who used the city's zoo for rehearsals and played with a skill and charisma that belied their brutal circumstances. Plus, as you can see from this new clip,...

Staff Benda Bilili's remarkable story is coming to UK cinemas. Robin Denselow talks to the men who made it all happen.

It's an intriguing imponderable of the African music scene. If Renaud Barret, a Paris-based graphic designer, hadn't had a girlfriend who went to eastern Congo to write about child soldiers, then would the most successful African band of recent years still be busking on the streets of Kinshasa? It's quite possible. And it's certain that a most extraordinary music documentary would never have been made.

Benda Bilili! follows the (almost literally) rags-to-riches story of Staff Benda Bilili, a band of musicians who've had polio playing guitars from their wheelchairs, along with a former street child, Roger Landu, who performs on an instrument constructed from a tin can and a piece of wire. They were hailed as a sensation when they first appeared in London in 2009, and continued to build...

The South by Southwest Film Festival announced its feature film line-up Wednesday, piling heaps of cinematic goodness on an already stellar program that includes Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, Duncan Jones’ Source Code, Ti West’s The Innkeepers, Conan O’Brien’s tour documentary, and the latest Simon Pegg-Nick Frost comedy, Paul, with Seth Rogen.

Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) returns to the festival with her latest film, Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfried, after the writer-director spoke on a screenwriting panel in 2009.

Plus a few favorites from the Sundance Film Festival last month, like Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and Max Winkler’s Ceremony.

I’m extremely excited, even if I’m already having flashbacks to intense sleep deprivation. Like the last two years, I’ll be on the ground covering as much of the festival as I can within the packed 9 days of screenings,...

‘Tapping into the cultural zeitgeist,’ at SXSW 2011

Austin, Texas – The SXSW 2011 Feature Film Lineup was unveiled Wednesday afternoon. The festival lineup will consist of 130 features, in nine full days of programming, promising to deliver a film-going experience unlike previous years.

With a reputation for taking chances on relatively unknown filmmakers, the SXSW panel of judges carefully picked 130 films from 1,792 feature-length film submissions, (1,323 U.S. and 469 international). The program consists of 60 World Premieres, 12 North American Premieres and 16 U.S. Premieres.

The main competition categories return with eight Narrative Features, and eight Documentary Features, both competing for their respective Grand Jury Prize. New for films in competition this year, are awards for screenplay, editing, cinematography, music, and acting.

(The Midnighters and SXFantastic feature sections, along with the short film program, will be announced next week.)

Here are a few of the Features to be screened, among many others.

Narratives:

The Beaver (World Premiere)

Dir.

Readers of Sound On Sight can be sure that we will indeed be covering the SXSW Film Festival once again. As previously reported, Duncan Jones’ latest film Source Code is opening the festival and there will also be premieres for the documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, Greg Mottola’s Paul, and Jodie Foster’s The Beaver. Now the full line-up has been announced it is incredible.

Hit the jump to check out the line-up, and be sure to visit our site during the event.

The 2011 SXSW Film Festival runs from March 11 – 19th in Austin, Texas.

SXSW Film Announces 2011 Features Lineup

Austin, Texas – February 2, 2011 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 11 – 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers.

The South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival announced this year's features lineup. The festival takes place March 11-19 in Austin, Texas.

There are a total of 130 features screening this year including 60 world premieres, 12 North American premieres and 16 U.S. premieres! This year the a total of 1,792 feature-length films were submitted, which is the most ever.

There are going to be some amazing films shown this yea. Opening night kicks off with Duncan Jones' Source Code (Moon). The fest rolls on with Jodie Foster‘s The Beaver, Greg Mottola‘s Paul, Sundance Grand Prize doc winner How to Die in Oregon, Errol Morris‘ Tabloid, Victoria Mahoney‘s Yelling to the Sky, Azazel Jacob‘s Terri. There will also be a special screening of Catherine Hardwicke‘s Red Riding Hood.

The Midnight and SXFantastic sections will be announced with the shorts program next week.

See the complete lineup below via...

The South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) just announced their entire 2011 feature film lineup, and there’s isn’t a lot of note, with regards to this blog’s focus.

Titles you should be aware of – all of which we’ve previously profiled on Shadow And Act – include, Victoria Mahoney’s feature film debut, Yelling To The Sky (which will actually make its world debut at the Berlin Film Festival later this month); plus Blacktino, the first feature film from writer/director Aaron Burns, a self-described “blacktino nerd from Austin, Texas,” who got his start at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios doing visual effects; Benda Bilili, a documentary about a band of homeless, disabled Congolese; and last, but not least, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, a documentary about the black man that happens to be the man behind the puppet (which also played at Sundance).

There might be...

The South by Southwest Film Festival has announced their features lineup for the 2011’s Festival, which will take place March 11th to the 19th in Austin Texas. Read the full press release after the jump. SXSW Film Announces 2011 Features Lineup Austin, Texas – February 2, 2011 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 11 – 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers. The Midnighters and SXFantastic feature sections, along with the short film program, will be announced next week. “This is the most exciting moment for us. After a fantastic festival of discovery in 2010, we can finally unveil the line up for this year’s event,” says Film Conference and Festival Producer Janet Pierson. “SXSW prides itself on taking chances, sifting for...

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year's Festival, March 11 - 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers. The Midnighters and SXFantastic feature sections, along with the short film program, will be announced next week.

"This is the most exciting moment for us. After a fantastic festival of discovery in 2010, we can finally unveil the line up for this year's event," says Film Conference and Festival Producer Janet Pierson. "SXSW prides itself on taking chances, sifting for films that are the seedlings of the next generation of must-see artists. This year's line up is full of emerging voices and filmmakers who transcended the resources they had on hand, often with an alchemist's touch."

Over the course of nine days, 130 features will...

Xavier Beauvois' "Of Gods and Men" dominated the nominations of the 36th Annual Cesar Awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars. "Of Gods" received 11 nominations total and will compete against Heartbreaker (L'Arnacoeur), Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique), Mammuth, Le Nom Des Gens, The Ghost Writer, and On Tour for Best Film.

The Social Network, Invictus, Inception, Illegal, The Secret In Their Eyes, Bright Star, and Les Amours Imaginaires will duke it out for the Best Foreign Film category.

Jodie Foster will preside over the ceremony and Quentin Tarantino will be given an honorary Cesar award. The 36th Annual Cesar Awards will be held on Feb. 25th.

Here is the full list of nominees:

Best Film

Heartbreaker (L'Arnacoeur), dir: Pascal Chaumeil

Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes Et Des Dieu), dir: Xavier Beauvois

Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique), dir: Joann Sfar

Mammuth, dir: Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern

Le Nom Des Gens, dir: Michel Leclerc

The Ghost Writer,...

On occasion, factual subject matter presents itself that is just so inherently dramatic and uplifting that little intrusive shaping of the material by filmmakers is required. Benda Bilili!, a rousing documentary about a group of Congolese musicians whose very lives depend on playing music, is just such a story.

Brought and held together by Ricky, an industrious paraplegic man in Congo Kinshasa, Staff Benda Bilili are a group comprised of both disabled and able-bodied men, who play an infectious hybrid of funk and African and Latin rhythms, with a sprinkling of psychedelic guitar. They live in poverty in a city of over ten million people, where their infirmities place them on the margins of a hugely marginalised population. They sleep, rehearse and even record in the streets and in the motley local zoo. Getting a recording made and released represented a chance at a potentially massive improvement in their circumstances,...

So, the 54th BFI London Film Festival starts in a couple of weeks time (13th to 28th October). Sadly, given its timing, most of the films that screen at Lff tend to have already been written about ad nauseum, having made the festival circuit from earlier in the year, starting with Sundance and making the rounds at other top fests like Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto. Sadly, unlike Venice and Toronto, which are both late in the festival circuit calendar but slightly earlier, Lff doesn’t tend to have any huge world premieres that get the Oscar buzz started… Ho hum. None of this stops tickets being sold out for some screenings within a week of going on sale to the public, and that happened earlier today! After all, Lff tends to bill itself as an audience festival, and what cinephile doesn’t want to be first in line to...

The artistic directors of both Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine de realisateurs) and Critics' Week (La Semaine de la critique) have stated they did not want to pick from Sundance titles. "We try to show films that don't pass through Sundance first", Critics Week’s Artistic Director Jean-Christophe Berjon said, “although U.S. indie entries are well represented this year." "I wanted to change things up and not take any Sundance films unless they were exceptional," said Frederic Boyer said in an interview. Considering how many Sundance titles went to the Berlinale, and that Cannes is 6 months later, singling out Sundance is somewhat odd. We in Us already know that Sundance has a certain sort of American film, and that other films are continually being made that might be just as good but not to the taste of Sundance programmers or simply not timed for the Sundance slot. That the two Cannes...

Lineup for the Cannes film festival sidebar, which will this year open and close with French movies, includes 11 features from first-time directors

French movies will bookend the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, which this year sees 22 features from as far afield as Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan. In contrast to 2009, when Francis Ford Coppola opened proceedings at the sidebar with his self-financed picture Tetro, half of this year's lineup will be from first-time directors.

Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye's documentary Benda Bilili!, about an orchestra made up entirely of disabled people, will open the sidebar, while the closing night film will be Fabienne Berthaud's Lily Sometimes, starring Diane Kruger and Ludivine Sagnier as sisters dealing with the sudden death of their mother.

Flying the flag for Britain are Alicia Duffy's feature debut All Good Children, a psychological drama about two Irish kids coping with their mother's suicide in France,...

Sorry, we're a day late on this one, been busy, but there's some great stuff coming our way, that is if you like arthouse fare.

Among other things will be a story about two violent teenage girls in France called Des filles en noir, along with Christoffer Boe's incredible looking Everyting will be fine (trailer).

There's a couple more gems we'll be reporting on shortly.

Full list after the break.

Directors' Fortnight

"All Good Children," U.K., Alicia Duffy

"Benda Bilili!," France, Renaud Barret, Florent de la Tullaye (opening film)

"Cleveland vs. Wall Street," Switzerland-France, Jean-Stephane Bron

"Des filles en noir," France, Jean-Paul Civeyrac

"Everything Will Be Fine," Denmark-Sweden-France, Christoffer Boe

"Illegal," Belgium-Luxembourg-France, Olivier Masset-Depasse

"The Invisible Eye," Argentina-France-Spain, Diego Lerman

"Joy," Brazil, Marina Meliande, Felipe Braganca

"Le quattro volte," Italy-Germany-Switzerland, Michelangelo Frammartino

"Leap Year," Mexico, Michael Rowe

"The Light Thief," Kyrgyzstan, Aktan Arym Kubat

"Lily Sometimes," France, Fabienne Berthaud...

Earlier today Cannes unveiled the 24 films selected for its annual sidebar, Directors’ Fortnight. Opening this year with Renaud Barret & Florent de la Tullaye’s documentary Benda Bilili!, the line-up is dominated by first-time filmmakers, 11 in all. One American standout is Cam Archer (Wild Tigers I Have Known) who will be screening his latest, Shit Year, starring Ellen Barkin. Fortnight will take place May 13-23. Full list of titles below. Feature Films Alegria (Joy), directed by Marina Méliande et Felipe Braganca (Brazil) All Good Children, directed by Alicia Duffy (UK) Alting bliver godt igen (Everything Will Be Fine), directed by Christoffer Boe (Denmark-Sweden-France) Año bisiesto, directed by Michael Rowe...

Alegria (Joy) Marina Méliande and Felipe Braganca. Braganca who we know from 2006's Love for Sale, teams up on a project which you can get a better feel for if you check out this picture and if you read portuguese. All Good Children - Alicia Duffy. This Brit debut promises to hit you where it hurts. Based on Sam Taylor’s novel The Republic of Trees, this centres on Dara and Eoin, two young Irish children of 11 and 12, who have to go and live at their aunt’s house in France, following their mother’s suicide. - Alegria (Joy) Marina Méliande and Felipe BragancaBraganca who we know from 2006's Love for Sale, teams up on a project which you can get a better feel for if you check out this picture and if you read portuguese. All Good Children - Alicia DuffyThis Brit debut promises to hit you where it hurts.

The lineup for the 2010 edition of Directors’ Fortnight has been announced. There are eleven first films in the lineup which will compete for the Camera d’Or prize which goes to a first film from across all the sections.

In 2010 Directors’ Fortnight, the Carrosse d’Or award will be awarded to Agnes Varda, the celebrated woman auteur-director of the french independant cinema. The Carrosse d’or (Golden Coach) Prize is a tribute to a director chosen from the international filmmaking community for the innovative qualities, courage and independent-mindedness of his or her work. Since its creation in 2002, this prize has been given to Jacques Rozier, Clint Eastwood, Nanni Moretti, Sembene Ousmane, David Cronenberg, Alain Cavalier, Jim Jarmusch and Naomie Kawasé in 2009.

Directors’ Fortnight will run from May 13 to 23 on the sidelines of the official selection at Cannes International Film festival.

Feature films

(* denotes films competing for Caméra d'Or Prize)

Alegria,...

In the list we find three items on my "Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of the Year in: Fabienne Berthaud's Pieds nus sur les limaces (see pic of Diane Kruger above), Cam Archer's Shit Year and Alistair Banks Griffin's debut film, Two Gates Of Sleep. Also included in the section is a doc-essay film from Michelangelo Frammartino that I'll be itching to see as well. Of the veteran auteurs, we have works from Christoffer Boe, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, old school High School doc filmmaker Frederik Wiseman and look for the Rolling Stones to be on hand for Stephen Kijak's Stones In Exile.. - You can say that there'll be plenty of virgins in this year's Director's Fortnight section. Quickly looking at the list of 22 feature films, Frédéric Boyer's very first edition appears to be heavy on first time works - exactly half of the section are newbies.

Alegria (Joy) Marina Méliande and Felipe BragancaBraganca who we know from 2006's Love for Sale, teams up on a project which you can get a better feel for if you check out this picture and if you read portuguese. All Good Children - Alicia DuffyThis Brit debut promises to hit you where it hurts. Based on Sam Taylor’s novel The Republic of Trees, this centres on Dara and Eoin, two young Irish children of 11 and 12, who have to go and live at their aunt’s house in France, following their mother’s suicide.Everything Will Be Fine - Christoffer BoeThe film received a national release earlier in the year (see pic) - to get an eyeful take a look at the trailer. or click here for the Vertigo-esque poster. Año bisiesto - Michael RoweRowe's debut film (which was mentioned by Screen Daily) and from the description only sounds like...

You can say that there'll be plenty of virgins in this year's Director's Fortnight section. Quickly looking at the list of 22 feature films, Frédéric Boyer's very first edition appears to be heavy on first time works - exactly half of the section are newbies. In the list we find three items on my "Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of the Year in: Fabienne Berthaud's Pieds nus sur les limaces (see pic of Diane Kruger above), Cam Archer's Shit Year and Alistair Banks Griffin's debut film, Two Gates Of Sleep. Also included in the section is a doc-essay film from Michelangelo Frammartino that I'll be itching to see as well. Of the veteran auteurs, we have works from Christoffer Boe, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, old school High School doc filmmaker Frederik Wiseman and look for the Rolling Stones to be on hand for Stephen Kijak's Stones In Exile. Here are...

Paris -- Cam Archer's sophomore film, "Shit Year," starring Ellen Barkin will be among the films screening in the 42nd annual Directors' Fortnight during the Festival de Cannes.

The sidebar's new artistic director, Frederic Boyer, announced the eclectic lineup Tuesday in Paris.

In "Shit Year," Barkin plays a has-been Hollywood actress who has an affair with a much younger actor, played by Luke Grimes. Alistair Banks Griffin will also represent the U.S. in the sidebar with his first feature, "Two Gates of Sleep," starring Brady Corbet, about two brothers who embark on a difficult journey to honor their dying mother's final request.

The Directors' Fortnight will open and close with a French accent this year. Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye's documentary about an orchestra made up of disabled people "Banda Bilili!" was picked as the opening-night film. The sidebar will close with a more glitzy red carpet premiere,...