Two Australian shorts selected for Cannes Film Festival

‘All These Creatures’.

No Australian feature films made the cut in the first batch of titles announced today for the Cannes Film Festival’s official competition and Un Certain Regard – but two shorts have been selected.


Charles Williams’ All These Creatures is among eight titles in the short films competition, chosen from 3,943 submissions.

Eryk Lenartowicz’s absurdist comedy Dots will screen in the Cinéfondation section, one of 17 selected from 2,426 films nominated by film schools around the world.

Williams’ film stars 13-year-old Ethiopian/Australian Yared Scott as Tempest, a boy who tries to understand the dark presence growing inside his father and the events that led to an inexplicable tragedy while his backyard is infested with insects. He cast Yared after auditioning more than 400 kids and rewrote the script to include his ethnic background.

A lot of the events depicted are “highly personal and reinterpreted,” Williams tells IF. This is the director’s fifth short since his 2002 debut I Can’t Get Started, followed by The Cow Thief, There Had Better Be Blood and Home.

Also he produced writer-director Yianni Warnock’s Homebodies, which was nominated for an AACTA award for best short in 2016.

He funded the short via sponsorship from the crew and companies including Panavision, Kodak, Park Road, Soundfirm and Final Sound. In Cannes he hopes to attract finance for several features and TV series he has been developing.

Produced by Rebecca Janek, Dots tells the story of a small Australian town where people start dying after the arrival of a mysterious stranger. However the local police officer is too preoccupied with his Mercedes to pay attention to the deaths happening around him.

The film was made while Eryk was completing his Master of Screen Arts at AFTRS. “It is every filmmaker’s dream to have their project screened at the Cannes Film Festival and I am truly grateful to have this privilege at such an early stage of my career,” he said.

”Now I know what it feels like when a dream becomes reality; a beautiful combination of weirdness, adrenaline, hope, fear, excitement and pure joy all at once.”

AFTRS CEO Neil Peplow said: “We’re thrilled that Eryk’s graduate film Dots will have its world premiere at Cannes. To be once again selected for such a prestigious festival highlights the calibre of films and the exceptional talent emerging from the School.”

Among the films selected for official competition are Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman, David Robert Mitchell’s Under The Silver Lake, Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Livre D’Image, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War and Kore-Eda Hirokazu’s Shoplifters.

More titles are expected to be announced and the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week line-ups will be revealed next week, so Australia may well have a bigger presence.

The 71st Cannes Festival runs from May 8-19.

OPENING NIGHT FILM

Everybody Knows, dir: Asghar Farhadi

COMPETITION

Le Livre D’Image, dir: Jean-Luc Godard

Blackkklansman, dir: Spike Lee

Three Faces, dir: Jafar Panahi

Cold War, dir: Pawel Pawlikowski

Leto, dir: Kirill Serebrennikov

Lazzaro Felice, dir: Alice Rohrwacher

Under The Silver Lake, dir: David Robert Mitchell

Capernaum, dir: Nadine Labaki

At War, dir: Stephane Brizé

Asako I&II, dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Sorry Angel, dir: Christophe Honoré

Dogman, dir: Matteo Garrone

Girls Of The Sun, dir: Eva Husson

Yomeddine, dir: A.B Shawky

Burning, dir: Lee-Chang Dong

Shoplifters, dir: Kore-Eda Hirokazu

Ash Is Purest White, dir: Jia Zhang-Ke

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Dead Souls, Wang Bing

10 Years In Thailand, dirs: Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnon Sriphol & Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Pope Francis – A Man Of His Word, dir: Wim Wenders

La Traversée, dir: Romain Goupil

To The Four Winds, dir: Michel Toesca

Le Grand Cirque Mystique, dir: Carlos Diegues

The State Against Mandela And The Others, dirs: Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

Arctic, dir: Joe Penna

The Spy Gone North, dir: Yoon Jong-Bing

OUT OF COMPETITION

Le Grand Bain, dir: Gilles Lellouche

Solo: A Star Wars Story, dir: Ron Howard

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Bi Gan

Little Tickles, dir: Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer

Sofia, dir: Meyem Benm’Barek

Border, dir: Ali Abbasi

Sextape, dir: Antoine Desrosières

The Gentle Indifference Of The World, dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov

El Angel, dir: Luis Ortega

In My Room, dir: Ulrich Kohler

The Harvesters, dir: Etienne Kallos

My Favorite Fabric, dir: Gaya Jiji

Friend, dir: Wanuri Kahiu

Euphoria, dir: Valeria Golino

Angel Face, dir: Vanessa Filho

Girl, dir: Lukas Dhont

Manto, dir: Nandita Das

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