After Georges Nasser’s films “Ila Ayn” 1957, “Le Petit Étranger” 1962, and Maroun Baghdadi’s “Hors La Vie” 1991, Nadine Labaki’s latest “Capharnaüm” is chosen to be in the official competition at the 2018 Cannes Festival.
While the movie does not have a trailer yet, and neither do we have an official synopsis of what it is about, this is such an honor to bestow on this phenomenal Lebanese director whose previous two films were also critically acclaimed, with Where Do We Go Now winning the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival and being nominated for a Critics Choice Award in 2009.
Being part of the Official Selection at Cannes means that Capharnaüm is in the running for the show’s top prize – the Palme D’Or – for best movie. Nadine’s previous movies were selected for a different, less prestigious subset, the “Un Certain Regard” selection.
Other movies that were selected along with Capharnaüm are:
- Le Livre D’Image, dir: Jean-Luc Godard
- Blackkklansman, dir: Spike Lee
- Three Faces, dir: Jafar Panahi
- Cold War, dir: Pawel Pawlikowski
- Leto, dir: Kirill Serebrennikov
- Lazzaro Felice, dir: Alice Rohrwacher
- Under The Silver Lake, dir: David Robert Mitchell
- Capernaum, dir: Nadine Labaki
- At War, dir: Stephane Brizé
- Asako I&II, dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- Sorry Angel, dir: Christophe Honoré
- Dogman, dir: Matteo Garrone
- Girls Of The Sun, dir: Eva Husson
- Yomeddine, dir: A.B Shawky
- Burning, dir: Lee-Chang Dong
- Shoplifters, dir: Kore-Eda Hirokazu
- Ash Is Purest White, dir: Jia Zhang-Ke
The fact that Nadine Labaki is in the running against a legend such as Jean-Luc Goddard is an honor in itself.
I personally can’t wait to see Capernaum, and hope it’s as phenomenal as the honors it’s being bestowed indicate.