Cannes surprise winner 'Anora' to screen at Haifa Film Festival

The Haifa International Film Festival has announced the international lineup and guests for its upcoming festival, which will be held from October 15-26. The guest of honor will be Michel Hazanavicius, who won a Best Director Oscar for The Artist.

Hazanavicius will present his latest movie at the festival: The Most Precious of Cargoes. The film, which had its world premiere at Cannes, is an animated drama about a baby who survives the Holocaust when her father throws her from a moving train on the way to Auschwitz and who is taken in by a wood-cutter and his wife. In addition to The Artist, Hazanavicius’ previous films include Godard Mon Amour and the OSS 117 spy-spoof series.

The closing-night film will be Reading Lolita in Tehran by Eran Riklis, which is an adaptation of the book of the same name, a memoir by an Iranian teacher who invited her female students to her home to secretly discuss Western literature banned by the regime. The movie stars Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Tatami) and Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson, Shelter).

Savi Gabizon’s English-language remake of his movie, Longing, will also be shown. The film stars Richard Gere and Diane Kruger as former lovers who run into each other after decades, which leads to the man discovering that the woman had his child.

Among the international films on the program will be Anora by Sean Baker, a rom-com about a prostitute who marries a Russian oligarch’s son that was the surprise winner at Cannes this year.

Selena Gomez, Demi Moore, and Jesse Eisenberg

Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building) stars in Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, a musical comedy/crime thriller that also won top prizes at Cannes.

The Substance, another genre-bending movie, mixes horror with black comedy to tell the story of a fading celebrity played by Demi Moore who takes a drug that creates a younger version of herself.

Jesse Eisenberg directed and stars in A Real Pain, about bickering cousins who take a trip through Poland to honor their grandmother’s memory.

Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, a dramatized version of the founding of the original Saturday Night Live comedy sketch show, stars Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby) and Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans).

The festival will also feature several classics, including a tribute to the movies of the directing duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The recent documentary about their films, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, produced and narrated by Martin Scorsese, will be shown, as will several of their most popular movies, including The Red Shoes, about a doomed ballerina.

The festival previously announced competitions for Israeli films, and will open with the Iranian movie The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof, who escaped to Europe this spring after the regime turned against him because of his criticism of the government.

The festival’s full schedule will be available soon on haifaff.co.il