Three Film4 films invited to Cannes Film Festival 2017

13 April 2017

Three Film4 backed films have been invited to screen in Official Selection at the 70th Cannes Film Festival, which will take place from May 17-28:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer from director Yorgos Lanthimos and Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here will screen In Competition, while John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties will show Out of Competition.

Director of Film4 Daniel Battsek commented: “We are delighted that our filmmakers have caught the attention of the world’s premier film festival, and proud and excited for these three films to be presented for the first time at Cannes in May.”

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is Film4’s second collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos to be selected for Cannes, following The Lobster, which screened In Competition and won the festival’s Jury Prize in 2015. The film reunites Lanthimos with Colin Farrell, who stars as Steven, a charismatic surgeon forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behaviour of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister. Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy and Bill Camp also star in a film that was scripted by Lanthimos and his regular collaborator Efthymis Filippou, and produced by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe of Element Pictures.

Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here has also been selected to screen In Competition. Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alessandro Nivola, Judith Roberts and John Doman star in an adaptation of the novella by Jonathan Ames, written and directed by Lynne Ramsay, and produced by Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux and James Wilson for Why Not Productions.

John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties stars Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, Ruth Wilson, Matt Lucas and Nicole Kidman. Croydon, 1977: at local punk queen Boadicea’s party, teenage punk wannabe Enn discovers every boy’s dream – gorgeous foreign exchange students. But these teens are in fact aliens, sent to Earth to prepare for a mysterious rite of passage. Love-struck Enn turns to Boadicea and her followers to save the object of his affections Zan from certain death. But when the punks take on the aliens, neither Enn’s nor Zan’s universe will ever be the same again. Adapted from Neil Gaiman’s short story by Philippa Goslett and John Cameron Mitchell, the film is produced by Howard Gertler, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and John Cameron Mitchell, for See-Saw Films and Little Punk.

The 70th Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 17-28, 2017.

ENDS

 

About Film4

Film4 is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division, which develops and co-finances films and has an established track record for working with the most distinctive and innovative talent in UK and international filmmaking. Film4 has developed and/or co-financed many of the most successful UK films of recent years - Academy Award®-winners such as Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Asif Kapadia’s Amy and Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, Todd Haynes’ Carol, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Shane Meadows’ This is England, Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, Yann Demange’s 71, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.

 

Currently in production:

COLD WAR (Pawel Pawlikowski)

THE FAVOURITE (Yorgos Lanthimos)

BEEN SO LONG (Tinge Krishnan)

MARADONA (Asif Kapadia)

 

Future productions include:

PETERLOO (Mike Leigh)

WIDOWS (Steve McQueen)

FREAKSHIFT (Ben Wheatley)

JANIS (Sean Durkin)

 

Currently in post-production:

JOURNEYMAN (Paddy Considine)

OLD BOYS (Toby MacDonald)

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh)

DARK RIVER (Clio Barnard)

BEAST (Michael Pearce)

LEAN ON PETE (Andrew Haigh)

MARY MAGDALENE (Garth Davis)

I AM NOT A WITCH (Rungano Nyoni)

AMERICAN ANIMALS (Bart Layton)

DISOBEDIENCE (Sebastián Lelio)

AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN (Jim Hosking)

FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY (Stephen Merchant)

 

Other recent projects include:

FREE FIRE (Ben Wheatley)

TRESPASS AGAINST US (Adam Smith)

BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK (Ang Lee)

T2 TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle)

AMERICAN HONEY (Andrea Arnold)

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR (Susanna White)

HIGH-RISE (Ben Wheatley)

ROOM (Lenny Abrahamson)

UNA (Benedict Andrews)

THE OATH (Baltasar Kormákur)