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10 Films Not Heading To Cannes (But Sure To Hit Venice and/or Toronto)

10 Films Not Heading To Cannes (But Sure To Hit Venice and/or Toronto)
10 Films Not Heading Cannes ( Sure Hit Venice and/or Toronto)

The 2014 Cannes Film Festival lineup is out, and while it certainly includes enough highly anticipated films to fulfill any cinephile’s dreams between now and the festival’s May 14th kick-off, there were a few films that didn’t end up making the cut — some bigger surprises than others.

Whether due to the film not being done or a strategic move to screen it elsewhere or maybe even Cannes rejecting it, quite a few high profile films are now officially major contenders for the fall festival circuit’s main trio — Venice, Toronto and/or Telluride.

Here are 10 examples:

“Big Eyes”
Directed by Tim Burton
Tim Burton — who
headed the Cannes jury two years back — has gotten a lot of flack as of
late thanks to big budget,
critically panned films like “Alice in Wonderland” and “Dark Shadows.” And while it seems like he is making a return to fantasy-free, low-budget fare in 2014
— really for the first time since 1994’s “Ed Wood” (which is perhaps
his most critically acclaimed film) — it didn’t end up meaning a trip to the
Croisette. With a script from “Wood”
screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, “Big Eyes” takes on
the true story of husband and wife artists Walter and Margaret Keane
(Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams), the former of whom rose to fame in
1950s for his paintings of big-eyed kids.

“Birdman”
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Inarritu’s
past films to have gotten into the Cannes Film Festival have been grim,
foreign-language dramas that tackle issues of global and social
importance. His upcoming film “Birdman,” on the other hand, was said to not have been ready, and maybe it’s for the best that Inarritu mixes things up for a film in which he definitely, well, mixes things up: It’s an
American comedy starring Zach Galifianiakis, Emma Stone and Michael
Keaton about an actor trying to regain his former glory on Broadway when
his days playing a famous superhero have long been gone.

“Eden”
Directed by Mia Hansen-Love
At only 33, Mia
Hansen-Love has already established herself as a director to watch, and many expected her to be screening in competition this year. She
won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2009
Cannes Film Festival for her drama “The Father of my Children.” Her
latest project, “Eden,” follows the life of a French DJ who’s credited
with inventing “French house” or the “French touch,” a type of French
electronic music that became popular in the 1990s. But for whatever reason, “Eden” will be sitting out Cannes.

“Far From the Madding Crowd”
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
“A Celebration” director Thomas Vinterberg made quite the comeback at
Cannes a couple of years back with the eventually Academy Award-nominated “The Hunt,” and he follows it up with
this promising adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s 19th century classic
headlined by the ever reliable Carey Mulligan as a woman who inherits a
large farm and becomes romantically entangled with three men (Michael
Sheen, Tom Sturridge and Matthias Schoenaerts). Vinterberg has proven
adept at drawing out career best performances from his cast (Mads
Mikkelsen took home top acting honors at Cannes for his showstopping
turn in “The Hunt”), so signs point to this being a heated character
study… Just not one that will be screening at Cannes.

“The Imitation Game”
Directed by Morten Tyldum
After
directing Norwegian films “Buddy” and “Headhunters,” the latter being
the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time, Tyldum has a lot to
prove with “The Imitation Game.” With a bigger budget, the backing of
Harvey Weinstein, and a cast boasting the unstoppable Benedict
Cumberbatch, the film is about the British mathematician Alan Turing
(Cumberbatch) who was a successful cryptographer during World II and was
later prosecuted for his homosexuality. The film also stars Keira
Knightley and Matthew Goode, and seems like the kind of thing made for
awards season. Which made it seem likely all along that Harvey and company would choose to debut it in
Toronto.

“Inherent Vice”
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
It was wishful thinking from the get-go, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s epicly
anticipated follow-up to “The Master” was at the top of
almost anyone’s Cannes wish list. But the director has
been in post-production on the film since the fall, though he tends to
take his time and the film’s release date isn’t until December. So he’ll likely wait until Venice (like he did with “The Master”) or maybe he’ll
avoid the festival circuit altogether (which he basically did with
“There Will Be Blood”). But either way, we’ll be first in line when his
adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel makes its debut. Following a P.I.
who investigates the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend and her
boyfriend, the film’s remarkable ensemble includes Joaquin Phoenix, Josh
Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Jena
Malone, Joanna Newsom and Benicio del Toro.

“A Most Violent Year”
Directed by JC Chandor
After
garnering a screenplay nomination for the vastly underrated 2011 Wall
Street drama “Margin Call,” Chandor made a big splash at Cannes last year with a
subtler, but nonetheless acclaimed film, “All is Lost,” starring a
relatively silent Robert Redford. Once again proving that he’s a
versatile director to contend with, Chandor will be releasing his latest
film, crime drama “A Most Violent Year,” later this year. The film will
star Oscar Isaac of “Inside Llewyn Davis” and Jessica Chastain and
focuses on 1981—one of the most violent years in New York’s history. It was a longshot for Cannes to begin with, but expect it in Venice or Toronto.

“Rosewater”
Directed by Jon Stewart
“The Daily Show” won’t
arrive in Cannes as
host Jon Stewart and his directorial
debut “Rosewater” seems destined for Venice or Toronto instead. The comic had taken a leave of absence from his day job
back in

July 2013 to shoot the project alongside Shohreh Aghdashloo and Gael García
Bernal. Written by Stewart, Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molly, and based on
Maziar Bahari’s 2011 memoir “Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story of
Love, Captivity, and Survival,” the film centers on an Iranian-Canadian
journalist (Bernal) detained in Tehran for over 100 days during the 2009
presidential election in Iran. Stewart covered Bahari’s imprisonment
extensively on his show. Footage from the film was screened for buyers
in Toronto back in September 2013, so chances are the full deal will head back there a year later.

“Suite Francaise”
Director: Saul Dibb
Based on the powerful
novel of the same name
set in 1940s France, the source material has an equally dramatic
backstory: the Jewish-Russian born author Irene Nemirovsky planned a
five-novel cycle beginning in 1940, just as forces overran northern
France. In the summer of 1942, Nemirovsky, who had converted to
Catholicism, was shipped to Auschwitz and the two completed parts of
Nemirovsky’s planned cycle were discovered only six decades later.
Though a film based on Nemirovsky’s story sounds compelling, so does the
book which Nemirovsky finished, on which the film is based. “Suite
Francaise” tells the story of a woman in 1940s France who falls for a
German officer posted in the town as she awaits her prison-of-war
husband’s return. The cast, with Michelle Williams playing the woman
opposite Matthias Schoenaerts as her lover, should bring this strong
material to life. And while there’s a good chance The
Weinstein Company will privately preview the film at Cannes (as they tend to do), it won’t get a full-on premiere until the fall.

“While We’re Young”
Director: Noah Baumbach
A year after “Frances Ha,” Noah Baumbach
re-teams with “Greenberg” star Ben Stiller for a $10 million Scott Rudin
production about an uptight documentary filmmaker (wait, Ben Stiller
playing someone uptight?) and his wife (Naomi Watts) who try to loosen
up a bit by befriending a free spirited younger couple (Adam Driver and
Amanda Seyfried). It’s a great cast, and Baumbach is clearly on a roll
as of late. The film doesn’t have a release date yet (but is in post-production) — and Baumbach
also is working on “Untitled Public School Project” with “Frances” star
Greta Gerwig — but one way or another, we’ll get us some more Baumbach
(or double the Baumbach) by year’s end — just not at Cannes. Though Venice or Toronto seems more likely the case.

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