Paul Schrader’s Cannes Competition Film ‘Oh, Canada’ Sets French Distribution With ARP Selection

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michel Hazanavicius, the Oscar-winning director of “The Artist,” makes a first foray into animation with “The Most Precious of Cargoes” which world premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on May 24. Adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s bestselling novel, “The Most Precious of Cargoes” is the first animated feature to vie for a Palme d’Or since Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir” in 2008; and it will be the last movie watched by the competition jury, presided over by Greta Gerwig, before the closing ceremony. Hazanavicius developed the project for years and wrote the script with Grumberg, as well as created the drawings.

Paul Schrader hit Cannes this weekend with Competition title Oh, Canada, reuniting him with American Gigolo star Richard Gere in the role of a terminally ill documentarian who reveals secrets as his life nears its end.

Diaries are written in secrecy, free-flowing thoughts anchored to the page as if the ink could stop memories from vanishing through the hands of time. Filmmaker Paul Schrader understands the lingering, often quiet desperation of journaling like few filmmakers do.

EXCLUSIVE: Katie Holmes (Woman In Gold), Toby Kebbell (War For The Planet Of The Apes) and Oscar winner Al Pacino (The Irishman) have joined thriller Captivated, which International Film Trust is launching for sales in Cannes.

Paul Schrader revealed first details about his next feature project entitled Non Compos Mentis, at the press conference for his Cannes Competition title Oh, Canada on Saturday.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The unstoppable Paul Schrader, the 77-year-old auteur who just brought his latest movie “Oh, Canada” to Cannes, has announced his next project. The director revealed he intends to start production this fall on “Non Compos Mentis,” a noir film he is currently writing.

Paul Schrader had a special job on the set of his latest film, “Oh, Canada”: drawing on the jockstrap that Jacob Elordi wears in one of the Vietnam War drama’s pivotal scenes. There’s a choice at the heart of “Oh, Canada,” when the fictional filmmaker Leonard Fife (played as a young man by Elordi, and older man as Richard Gere) dodges the Vietnam draft and escapes to Canada. The script leaves breadcrumbs as to what exactly happens until very late in the film, but finally Elordi is seen reporting for an Army physical.

The first iteration of the Cannes Film Festival, planned for 1939, was scuppered when Germany invaded Poland to trigger the start of World War II. But when the festival finally got off the ground in 1946, Indian cinema came out swinging. Mounted shortly after the conclusion of the war, the first “real” Cannes Film Festival featured competition entries from Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend), Roberto Rossellini (Open City), and David Lean (Brief Encounter). In the spirit of post-war peace and reconciliation, the competition jury, headed by French historian Georges Huisman, handed the top prize — then the Grand Prix — to films from 11 of the 18 countries represented that year.

Paul Schrader shed tears as his new film “Oh, Canada” earned a four-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival on Friday night. Jacob Elordi was notably absent from the premiere, possibly because he is filming Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” in which he stars as The Monster. After the ovation finished, Schrader addressed Elordi not being there, saying: “I’m very happy with Richard, Uma, Jake — not here with us –and it all worked out.

Richard Gere poses for a family photo while attending the 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiere of his upcoming film Oh, Canada held at Palais des Festivals on Friday (May 17) in Cannes, France.

Hard to believe it has been 44 years since Paul Schrader and star Richard Gere last worked together on 1980’s seminal American Gigolo, a film that became not just a keystone in Gere’s celebrated career but also one for one Schrader’s as one of his earliest directorial credits. Of course he has written some of the great screenplays, particularly in his collaborations with Martin Scorsese on Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Taxi Driver. But it is what interests him now a half century later as a writer-director that continues to fascinate.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Straying from the hotheaded “Taxi Driver” style that has dominated much of his career, Paul Schrader pays ruminative and respectful tribute to his late friend, novelist Russell Banks, who gave the writer-director the raw material for one of his best films, “Affliction” — and now, for one of his best films in years. Adapted from Banks’ “Foregone” (and given the title the author told Schrader he wanted for the book), “Oh, Canada” presents a dying artist’s final testimony as a multifaceted film-within-a-film, honoring Banks while also revealing so many of Schrader’s own thoughts on mortality.

Angelique Jackson Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi star in Paul Schrader‘s latest, highly anticipated film ‘Oh Canada,’ which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. Based on the late Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone,” the film centers on Gere’s Leonard Fife, an acclaimed filmmaker and “one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam, shares all his secrets to de-mythologize his mythologized life.” Elordi plays the younger version of Leonard. In this first-look clip, Gere’s Leonard speeds up to someone’s home, gets out of a car and walks toward the gate.

Uma Thurman has been to Cannes more times than she can remember, either to pledge support for the glamorous annual charity event amfAR or with films as diverse as the genteel Merchant-Ivory period film The Golden Bowl (2000) and Quentin Tarantino’s ultraviolent Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), in which she reprised her badass role as The Bride. The film that propelled her to stardom, Pulp Fiction, won the Palme d’Or there, and Thurman hasn’t forgotten what it did for her. This year, she’s back with Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada, the kind of smart, character-based indie on which she earned her spurs.

In 2020, Magnus von Horn was excited to find that his film Sweat had been accepted into the Official Selection at Cannes, a big step up from his debut, The Here After, which made Directors’ Fortnight in 2015. The pandemic put an end to that, but his disappointment was short-lived; this year, his dark atmospheric follow-up, The Girl With the Needle, sees him joining the big league. “This is huge to me,” he beams. “The main competition!”

Gregg Goldstein These auteurs are ready for their close-up. When Quentin Dupieux’s comedy about an ill-fated film set, “The Second Act,” opened the Cannes Film Festival May 14, it will be just one of several movies about filmmaking and filmmakers to touch down on the Croisette. After all, directors Christophe Honoré, Paul Schrader and Josh Mond are among the other prominent filmmakers who are ready to premiere semi-autobiographical stories.

Paul Schrader was about to start shooting “Oh, Canada,” his adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel about a troubled artist taking stock of his life, when the major actors union went on strike. For a second, it looked like all that hard work, passion and planning might be for nothing — with performers on the picket lines and major studios holding out on their contract demands, it was hard to see how cameras would ever roll on the low-budget indie. “Everything shut down,” said Brian Beckmann, the CFO and COO of Arclight Films, which is selling international rights to the film.

Gregg Goldstein These auteurs are ready for their close-up. When Quentin Dupieux’s comedy about an ill-fated film set, “The Second Act,” opened the Cannes Film Festival May 14, it will be just one of several movies about filmmaking and filmmakers to touch down on the Croisette. After all, directors Christophe Honoré, Paul Schrader and Josh Mond are among the other prominent filmmakers who are ready to premiere semi-autobiographical stories.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based Nour Films has acquired French rights to Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi’s first feature Norah ahead of its world premiere in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent New Italian media company Be Water – which is in Cannes for the first time – has announced its full roster of partners and scope of business activities comprising film, documentary and scripted TV production as well as theatrical film distribution, podcasts and live events. The Rome-based potential powerhouse is operating with what is being described as a holistic approach to content production that is congenial to the digital age, which is certainly a novelty for Italy.