Being selected for the festival this year means that the film can be promoted as an “Official Cannes Selection,” which confers prestige and can help the film attract audiences.
By HANNAH BROWNHere We Are(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Cannes Film Festival, one of the most important in the world, will not take place as usual this year, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, but it announced the lineup for its 73rd edition on Wednesday evening and two Israeli films have made the cut.Being selected for the festival this year means that the film can be promoted as an “Official Cannes Selection,” which confers prestige and can help the film acquire distribution and attract audiences. Fifty-six films were chosen out of more than 2,000 submissions.Among the Israeli films selected is Nir Bergman’s fifth film, Here We Are, the story of a man who plans to put his autistic son into an institution and at the last minute goes on an unplanned journey with him. It stars Shai Avivi, Noam Imber, Smadar Wolfman and Efrat Ben-Zur. Bergman’s films, Broken Wings and Intimate Grammar, both won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival but this is his first film at Cannes.Bergman said in a statement, "It's incredibly exciting even though the festival will not take place in its usual form. We are happy that this is the beginning of the film’s journey and hope that the cinemas will open soon and we can present it to audiences.”Dani Rosenberg’s film, The Death of Cinema and My Father Too, has also been accepted into Cannes. It is a highly person story of his relationship with his father, their love of cinema and his father’s illness. It stars Marek Rozenbaum, one of Israel’s most accomplished movie producers, as the father and journalist/actor Roni Kuban as the son.Cannes has always been welcoming to Israeli films. Among the most prestigious awards won by Israeli films in the past are the Best Screenplay Award for Joseph Cedar’s Footnote in 2011 and the Best Actress Award for Hanna Laslo in Amos Gitai’s Free Zone in 2005.The competition also includes Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, which was rumored to have been the opening-night film — a distinction that is now irrelevant as there will be no opening night — the story of an American newspaper in France in the 20th century starring American Jewish actor Timothée Chalamet.
