Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

TIFF Cinematheque

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From art-house classics to scrappy American indies to cutting-edge cult hits and hidden gems, our tribute to Cannes’ critics-run sidebar — as selected by eight local and international film critics and opinion-makers — testifies to Critics Week’s key role in discovering new generations of filmmaking talent.

Launched in 1962 as a parallel section to the Cannes Film Festival by the French Union of Film Critics, and still presided over by critics to this day, the mission of La Semaine de la Critique (Critics Week) has been to provide an international showcase for the works of first- and second-time directors. In the fifty years since its inception, the Critics Week sidebar has helped introduce the world to some of the most prominents artists in international cinema: Bernardo Bertolucci, Chris Marker, Ken Loach, Wong Kar-wai, John Sayles, Leos Carax, Arnaud Desplechin, Denys Arcand, Guillermo del Toro, Gaspar Noé, and many more.

In honour of the fiftieth anniversary of La Semaine de la Critique, TIFF Cinematheque invited eight local and international critics and opinion-makers to each select and introduce a film that was discovered at the festival. The diversity of their selections — everything from revered art-house classics to scrappy American indies, cutting-edge cult hits and intriguingly unknown efforts by famous names — testifies to the festival's remarkable breadth and eclecticism, and its key role in discovering new generations of filmmaking talent. — Brad Deane

Les Critics:

Liz Braun is a film critic for the Toronto Sun.

Fabien Gaffez is a film critic for Positif and a member of the feature film selection committee for La Semaine de la Critique.

Peter Howell is a film critic for The Toronto Star.

Chris Knight is a film critic for the National Post.

Liam Lacey is a film critic for The Globe and Mail.

Jonathan Rosenbaum is a former film critic for the Chicago Reader. His latest book is Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition.

George Stroumboulopoulos is the host and executive producer of CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and The Strombo Show.

Norm Wilner is a film critic for NOW Magazine.

Thanks to the following individuals and organizations for their assistance with this series: Laure Dahout and Claire Le Masne, Consulat général de France à Toronto; Institut français; Jean-Baptiste Garnero, CNC; Michelle Carey, Melbourne International Film Festival; Raymond Phathanavirangoon; Emilie Cauquy, Cinémathèque française.

Special thanks to Rémi Bonhomme and Hélène Auclaire, La Semaine de la Critique, for making this series possible.

Films in Fifty Years of Discoveries: Cannes Critics Week

    • The Spirit of the Beehive
    • El espíritu de la colmena

    • A screening of Frankenstein excites the imagination of a young girl living in a small Spanish village in this poetic masterpiece by the great Victor Erice.

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    • Clerks

    • Kevin Smith’s hilariously foul-mouthed ode to slackerdom brought American indie cinema to the mainstream and defined a generation too disaffected to bother to define themselves.

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    • Walkover
    • Walkower

    • The autobiographical second feature by Polish enfant terrible Jerzy Skolimowski echoes the French nouvelle vague in its extraordinarily stylized tale of a prizefighter who ducks a fight to romance a beautiful blonde.

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    • Living Together
    • Vivre ensemble

    • Anna Karina, Jean-Luc Godard’s former wife, star and muse, made her directorial debut with this graceful and affecting love story, recently rediscovered after falling into obscurity for nearly four decades.

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    • Man Bites Dog
    • C'est arrivé près de chez vous

    • A film crew chronicles, and becomes progressively implicated in, the bloody ravages of a spiffily dressed serial killer in this controversial, prescient and still-shocking mockumentary.

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    • Loving Memory

    • Tony Scott, the crown prince of cinema bombast, made his debut with this beautifully atmospheric and intriguingly low-key piece of rural Gothic set in the Yorkshire countryside.

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    • The Orphanage
    • El Orfanato

    • A young woman discovers a terrible secret about her past in this visually stunning ghost story from producer Guillermo del Toro and director Juan Antonio Bayona.

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