Celebration of World Cinema at Montreal Fest

Involved in a yearly pitched battle with the Venice and Toronto festivals over high-end art films, the Montreal World Film Festival has scored a major coup by nabbing the world premieres of Claude Chabrol's Merci pour le chocolat and David Mamet's State and Main, as well as the international premiere of Benoît Jacquôt's Sade. Both French flicks will be part of an official competition which promises to be one of the strongest in the history of the Montreal event.

The Montreal fest has been criticized in recent years for lacking in Hollywood glitz. At a time when independent and European films are squeezed out as ever of commercial screens in North America, however, with even the number of French films released commercially at an all time low in predominantly French-speaking Quebec, the determination of the Montreal festival to keep a genuine focus on world cinema is actually a strength. Only 17 of the 206 feature films shown this year will be American. The local public has long recognized the unique value of the fest, by packing most screenings year in year out, making the Montreal festival arguably the most publicly attended festival in the world.

Other films offered this year in competition include Combat d'amour en songe, by Raoul Ruiz (who, amazingly, has another film competing in Venice); A Handul of Grass, by up-and-coming German director Roland Suso Richter, already well received at the Munich fest; Ali Zaoua, by Nabil Ayouch, a rare Morrocan film; Innocence, by famed Australian auteur Paul Cox; the Sundance stunner You Can Count on Me; The Mechanism, by Yugoslav helmer Djordje Milosavljevic, and local boy Denis Villeneuve's Maëlstrom, whose first film, Un 32 août sur la terre, was well received at Cannes and Telluride two years ago.

Confirmed guests reflect the "world" vocation of the fest: Chinese diva Gong Li, whose latest film Breaking the Silence is competing; Om Puri (a truly extraordinary Indian actor, in the humble opinion of this correspondent), whose Canadian-produced My Little Devil will have its world premiere; French leading man Daniel Auteuil, in town for Sade; German director Völker Schlondorff, who will attend an homage to the legendary Babelsberg studios, Swedish actor-turned-director Liv Ullman, a fest devotee whose Cannes contender Faithless will screen with additional footage showing Ingmar Bergman; and Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who will join the jury. David Mamet is also most likely to turn up, since he will begin shooting his next feature in Montreal this month.

The festival will feature 147 North American premieres, half of which world or international premieres. The potential gems, which have not played at major festivals thus far, include Born in Absurdistan (Austria); The Sky Will Fall (Italy), starring Isabella Rosselini; Brat 2, the summer hit in Russia; Stand by and Les filles ne savent pas nager (France), La terre des âmes errantes (France-Cambodia), Vendetta (Belgium) and no doubt dozens of others. No less than seven new films from Japan, six from Germany, and four from Iran will have their international debut.

Scores of films discovered in other festivals earlier this year will also be on the program, the standouts being Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien (France), Les destinées sentimentales (France), the Karlovy Vary winner The Big Animal (Poland), Woman on Top (US) and Burning Man (US), an outré documentary on an annual bacchanalia in the Nevada desert. Le goût des autres, the French smash hit of the year, will open the fest on 25 August. Bootmen (Australia), an inspirational tale, will close it on 4 September.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Dominique Arel