Both 'Lover's Rock' and 'Mangrove' which come from the '12 Years a Slave' director and based on his anthology series 'Small Axe' has officially been announced among the 2020 Cannes line-up.
- Jun 4, 2020
AceShowbiz - Films directed by Wes Anderson, Viggo Mortensen, and Francois Ozon have been honoured by bosses at the postponed Cannes Film Festival.
The physical film event in May was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, newly re-elected festival president Pierre Lescure and artistic director Thierry Fremaux staged a televised press conference at the UGC Normandy cinema in Paris, France to confirm the much-anticipated 2020 line-up.
In total, 56 movies were chosen for the festival's Official Selection.
Highlights include Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch", Francois Ozon's "Summer of 85", and actor Viggo Mortensen's directorial debut, "Falling".
Two of "12 Years a Slave" filmmaker Steve McQueen's projects were selected - "Lover's Rock" and the timely "Mangrove", which chronicles historic racial tensions in London.
The Oscar-winning director has dedicated both movies to George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Shortly after they officially made the Cannes list, the filmmaker honoured the memory of Floyd and "all the other black people that have been murdered, seen or unseen, because of who they are, in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere."
The films come from the director's anthology series "Small Axe", which will be shown on Amazon Prime and the BBC.
There will be no physical festival in 2020, which means no juries and officials will not be handing out the Palme d'Or to the director of the best film, but the producers of all 56 movies selected will be able to tag their films with "Festival de Cannes Official Selection."
On Tuesday, Fremaux revealed the selection committee had received a record 2,067 films for consideration even though the festival had been cancelled.
Of the films chosen, 16 were directed by women - two more than last year's record.
