20 April

A History of Vioelence at Cannes

According to Canada.com, The movie A History of Violence will show at the 58th Cannes Film Festival as part of the competition. The festival will take place next month, 11th-22nd May 2005. The version which will be shown is 90 minutes long. For the first time, Canada's premier film directors, Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg, will go head to head for the top prize - the Golden Palm. "I don't think we feel we're going head to head because there are 18 other movies", says Cronenberg. "I mean, it would be wonderful if we were the main ones in contention. I think we'd take that easily. It's possible we'll both be completely dismissed by the jury and win absolutely nothing. It's a crap shoot there". "It might surprise people", says Cronenberg, when asked about his reputation for gory subject matter. "It's a drama, you know. It's not an action thriller, so it's not particularly violent, not gory at all. But violence is its subject on a certain level". The director stresses that although based on a graphic novel, don't expect to be able to compare it to Robert Rodriguez's current screen hit Sin City. "Our approach was diametrically opposite to Sin City. I didn't even know that the script that I read was based on a graphic novel". Both Cronenberg's and Egoyan's films suggest the two directors are moving closer to the commercial mainstream from their auteur or genre origins. Cronenberg says only that Spider was a low-budget, independent movie that represented two years of his working life and he wasn't paid anything for it. "And I couldn't afford to do that again. So I really wanted to do a movie that was at least commercial enough that I could get paid. It's as simple as that". A History of Violence is scheduled for a September 30 theatrical release. Official Site Some of the other films to be shown in the competition: Lars Von Trier - Manderlay (Denmark) Wim Wenders - Don't Come Knockin' (Germany) Amos Gitai - Free Zone (Israel) Jim Jarmusch - Broken Flowers (USA) Gus Van Sant - Last Days (USA) Tommy Lee Jones - The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (USA) Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez - Sin City (USA) Out of Competition: Woody Allen - Match Point (USA) George Lucas - Stars Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (USA)