24/04/2023 - The sales agent’s line-up includes competition titles by Wim Wenders, Marco Bellocchio, Alice Rohrwacher and Aki Kaurismäki, plus Sean Price Williams’ debut, showcased in the Directors’ Fortnight

The Match Factory is ready to play five aces at the Cannes Film Festival (16-27 May) this year. Four of these will be showcased in the festival’s official competition, while one will be screened in the Directors’ Fortnight.

The first competition title is Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves [+see also:
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film profile] (see the news). After winning the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale with The Other Side of Hope [+see also:
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Q&A: Aki Kaurismäki
film profile] (2017), the veteran Finnish filmmaker is back with the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honourable goal is clouded by the man's alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other's names or addresses, and life's general tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking happiness. “This gentle tragicomedy, previously thought to be lost, is the fourth part of Aki Kaurismäki's working-class trilogy (comprising Shadows in Paradise, Ariel and The Match Factory Girl),” states the outfit’s official press release.

Up next are two Italian films – namely, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped [+see also:
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film profile]. After his recent features Marx Can Wait [+see also:
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film profile] (2021), The Traitor [+see also:
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Q&A: Marco Bellocchio
film profile] (2019) and the six-part series Exterior Night [+see also:
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interview: Marco Bellocchio
series profile] (2022), Bellocchio returns with a fiction movie set in the 19^th century, based on the true story of Edgardo Mortara. The story begins in 1858 when, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptised by his nurse as a baby, and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly takes on a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, in a bid to consolidate their increasingly wavering power... The cast is led by Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese, Filippo Timi and Fabrizio Gifuni.

Meanwhile, Rohrwacher will be back on the Croisette with a 1980s-set drama, after the widely praised Happy as Lazzaro [+see also:
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interview: Alice Rohrwacher
film profile] (2018), the winner of the Award for Best Screenplay at Cannes. The picture explores the clandestine world of the so-called tombaroli (lit. “tomb robbers”) and tells the story of a young English archaeologist caught up in the illegal trafficking of ancient finds. The main cast includes rising star Josh O’Connor (best known for his portrayal of young Charles III in seasons three and four of the Netflix hit The Crown) alongside Isabella Rossellini, Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher and Vincenzo Nemolato.

Finally, the outfit’s fourth competition title is Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days [+see also:
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film profile]. The picture will mark the German master’s 13^th Cannes premiere. In it, Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine, he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. It’s a deeply moving and poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us. The cast is spearheaded by Koji Yakusho, Arisa Nakano, Tokio Emoto, Yumi Aso, Sayuri Ishikawa, Tomokazu Miura, Aoi Yamada and Min Tanaka.

The line-up is rounded off by the team’s latest acquisition, freshly announced just last week: Sean Price Williams’ debut, The Sweet East. It is described as “a picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the eastern seaboard of the United States undertaken by Lillian, a high-school senior from South Carolina who gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, DC.” Separated from her schoolmates, she embarks on a fractured fairy-tale travelogue into America, where she is granted access to a variety of the strange factions that proliferate the present-day unreality of contemporary life. The main cast members are Talia Ryder, Simon Rex, Earl Cave, Jacob Elordi, Jeremy O Harris, Ayo Edebiri and Rish Shah.

“This year’s edition marks a milestone in The Match Factory history at Cannes – four titles in competition is a record for us. We are honoured to come to Cannes this year in the best of company: Aki Kaurismäki, the godfather of the company; Alice Rohrwacher, whom we have accompanied since the beginning with all her films in competition; Marco Bellocchio, the Italian master we have been working with for many years; and Wim Wenders, our first collaboration with the master filmmaker – a dream come true. We return to the Directors’ Fortnight with Sean Price Williams’s debut, an indie powerhouse starring a wonderful cast. We couldn’t be more proud of our line-up,” The Match Factory’smanaging director, Michael Weber, told Cineuropa.