A24 And Neon Pick Up New Films From Cannes
Cannes might be a beautiful French town that is overrun by celebrities and movie execs once a year, but it's also basically a film industry shopping mall. Besides hosting hip screenings of all the cool movies you want to see, the film market is a place where studios wheel, deal, and procure all sorts of hot films. Imagine if the Sears at your local (probably dead) shopping mall was the latest Ruben Östlund film, or if the Macy's was an enticing directorial debut, and you've basically got the picture.
And man are the deals coming along. Some fresh news off of the Cannes circuit includes Neon snapping up a film by the aforementioned Ruben Östlund and A24 going all in on Charlotte Wells' directorial debut, both of which sound like interesting buys, even if they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Östlund, the director behind "Force Majeure" and "The Square" won a Palme d'Or in 2017, so it's not surprising that his upcoming film was picked up. Titled the "Triangle of Sadness," his latest project follows a Marxist who is the captains a cruise full of rich people. The film stars Woody Harrelson as the Marxist captain, which has been a delightful sentence to type. Besides Harrelson Östlund, the film is produced by Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober and it's received some stellar reviews from the Cannes crowd.
Cannes is a mall
On the other hand, A24 snapped up "Aftersun" by Wells, a Scottish filmmaker whose shorts have previously been screened at Sundance. Her film stars Paul Mescal ("Normal People") and Frankie Corio (who is brand new to the acting scene) as a father and daughter on vacation together in Turkey in the '90s. The film views their time together through the lens of the now grown daughter, who is looking back on her relationship with her father. "Aftersun" is produced by Adele Romanski, Barry Jenkins, Mark Ceryak, and Amy Jackson for Unified Theory. Just like with Östlund's film, Wells' debut is getting a lot of positive press straight from Cannes, so you can expect these movies to make their way onto your watchlist eventually.
And these aren't the only films that have scooped up so far, Neon's also grabbed Kore-eda Hirokazu's drama "Broker" and Mark Jenkin's horror "Enys Men." It's an exciting time of the year if you care about movies and industry news, and hey, it's never too early to start making lists of movies you want to see. Pining after a movie that's not available outside of the festival circuit is half the fun.