Critic’s Week 2011: Jeff Nichols, Jonathan Caouette, and Hagar Ben Asher Among 11 Features Selected

A Sundance favorite, a follow-up to a budget-less art house hit, and an anticipated Israeli film are a few of the highlights from the announced lineup for the 2011 Critic’s Week (aka Semaine de la Critique), the oldest sidebar in Cannes. The selection only admits films which are either debut or sophomore efforts, so we’ll be going in knowing scant details on what to expect, and likely coming out with some new major voices to follow. As we can see in the quintet of posters, past Critic’s Week discoveries includes cinema gods Wong Kar-wai and Bernardo Bertolucci, as well as Jacques Audiard and Barbet Schroeder. As this is the sidebar’s 50th anniversary, there might be even more treats to be announced in the near future.

Yesterday, we reported that Hagar Ben Asher’s The Slut had been selected for competition, and this was corroborated this morning. Ben Asher is an alumni of the Cinefondation class of 2007, where she was seeking funding for The Slut. Also selected for competition is Jeff Nichol’s Take Shelter, one of the bigger successes in Sundance last January (this means Jessica Chastain comes to Cannes for a pair of films – the other is of course the Malick feature). Over in the Special Screening’s section, we have Walk Away Renée by Jonathan Caouette, whose ~$250 video diary Tarnation played the Fortnight in 2004, and went on to (relatively) gargantuan success at the box office. This follow-up, which has undergone a name change from Cloudbusters, has been described as a sequel of sorts to Tarnation, likely shifting the balance more toward his mother than on himself — we spoke about the Cannes possibilities a couple of months back. Valérie Donzelli, an alumni of the Directors’ Fortnight short programs, will be presenting her film La Guerre est déclarée for a Special Screening as well — the film opens the section. Here’s a look at the full lineup:

Feature Films
Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli, ARG)
Ave (Konstantin Bojanov, BUL/FR)
17 Filles (Delphine & Muriel Coulin, FR)
The Slut (Hagar Ben Asher, ISR/ALL)
Snowtown (Justin Kurzel, AUS)
Sauna on Moon (Zou Peng, CHI)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, US)

Short Films
Alexis Ivanovitch vous êtes mon héros (Guillaume Gouix, FR)
Black Moon (Amie Siegel, US)
Blue (Stephan Kang, NZ)
Boy (Topaz Adizes, US)
Bul-Myul-Ui-Sa-Na-Ie (Moon Byoung-gon, COR)
Dimanches (Valérie Rosier, BEL)
In Front of the House (Lee Tae-ho, COR)
La inviolabilidad del domicilio se basa en el hombre que aparece empunando un hacha (Alex Piperno, URU/ARG)
Junior (Julia Ducournau, FR)
Permanencias (Ricardo Alves Jr., BRE)

Special Screenings
La Guerre est déclarée (Valérie Donzelli, FR) Opening Film
Pourquoi tu pleures? (Katia Lewcowicz, FR) Closing Film
Walk Away Renée (Jonathan Caouette, US/FR/BEL)
My Little Princess (Eva Ionesco, FR)