Loach and Leigh selected for Cannes Film Festival

Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner and Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall have been announced for Official Selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.  Both Film4-backed films will screen in competition during the 67th edition which begins 14th May.

Tessa Ross, Controller of Film and Drama at Channel 4, said: “I’m delighted that two of our most significant filmmakers will premiere their latest films side by side on the Croisette.  Ken and Mike are synonymous with great British filmmaking; with Jimmy's Hall and Mr. Turner they return to Cannes with two wonderful films which join their extraordinary canon of work. We're privileged to have supported them both."

Loach took home the Palme D’Or in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes the Barley, whilst Leigh won the same prize ten years before with Secrets & Lies.  The last time their films were in competition together in Cannes was in 2010, with Leigh’s Another Year and Loach’s Route Irish.

MR. TURNER
Timothy  Spall heads a large and impressive cast in Mike Leigh's rich portrait of the great if eccentric British painter, JMW Turner. Exploring the last quarter century of the artist's life, Mr. Turner takes us from Georgian to Victorian England, from the end of sailing ships to the coming of the railway. Sumptuously photographed by Dick Pope, the film evokes Turner's epic imagery, yet tells the tragi-comic story of a very mortal man.

JIMMY’S HALL
In 1921, Jimmy Gralton's sin was to build a dance hall on a rural crossroads in Ireland, where young people could come to learn, to argue, to dream... but above all to dance and have fun. Jimmy’s Hall celebrates the spirit of these free-thinkers.