Official 2017 Cannes Film Festival Selection - Haneke, Haynes, Coppola

Every year, cinephiles wake up early to catch the announcement direct from France of the films playing at the Cannes Film Festival. For the 70th Cannes Film Festival taking place this May they've revealed a fascinating selection of films premiering. The selection includes new features from Todd Haynes, Michael Haneke, Sofia Coppola, two new films from Hong Sangsoo, François Ozon, Lynne Ramsay, Noah Baumbach, Bong Joon-ho, Takashi Miike, and Yorgos Lanthimos. I'm most excited to see Okja, the new creature feature from Bong Joon-ho, as well as John Cameron Mitchell's How to Talk to Girls At Parties. And of course it's all about discovering and experiencing whatever Thierry Frémaux has decided to play. Full list found below.

Here's the complete selection of 2017 films directly from Cannes, including the director for easy reference.

COMPETITION (18 FILMS):
120 Beats Per Minute - dir. Robin Campillo
The Beguiled - dir. Sofia Coppola
The Day After - dir. Hong Sangsoo
A Gentle Creature - dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Good Time - dirs. Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie
Happy End - dir. Michael Haneke
In the Fade - dir. Fatih Akin
Jupiter's Moon - dir. Kornél Mundruczó
The Killing of a Sacred Deer - dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
L'amant Double - dir. François Ozon
Le Redoubtable - dir. Michel Hazanavicius
Loveless - dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev
The Meyerowitz Stories - dir. Noah Baumbach
Okja - dir. Bong Joon-Ho
Radiance - dir. Naomi Kawase
Rodin - dir. Jacques Doillon
Wonderstruck - dir. Todd Haynes
You Were Never Really Here - dir. Lynne Ramsay

OPENING NIGHT FILM:
Les fantômes d'Ismaël (Ismael's Ghosts) - dir. Arnaud Desplechin

OUT OF COMPETITION (3 FILMS):
Blade of the Immortal - dir. Takashi Miike
How to Talk to Girls At Parties - dir. John Cameron Mitchell
Visages, Villages - dirs. Agnès Varda & JR

UN CERTAIN REGARD (16 FILMS):
Barbara - dir. Mathieu Amalric
April's Daughter - dir. Michel Franco
Beauty and the Dogs - dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
Before We Vanish - dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Closeness - dir. Kantemir Balagov
The Desert Bride - dirs. Cecilia Atan & Valeria Pivato
Directions - dir. Stephan Komandarev
Dregs - dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
Jeune femme - dir. Léonor Serraille
L'Atelier - dir. Laurent Cantet
Lucky - dir. Sergio Castellitto
The Nature of Time - dir. Karim Moussaoui
Out - dir. Gyorgy Kristof
Western - dir. Valeska Grisebach
Wind River - dir. Taylor Sheridan
After the War - dir. Annarita Zambrano

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS (3 FILMS):
Prayer Before Dawn - dir. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
The Merciless - dir. Byun Sung-Hyun
The Villainess - dir. Jung Byung-Gil

SPECIAL SCREENINGS (9 FILMS):
12 Days - dir. Raymond Depardon
An Inconvenient Sequel - dirs. Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk
Clair's Camera - dir. Hong Sangsoo
Demons in Paradise - dir. Jude Ratman
Napalm - dir. Claude Lanzmann
Promised Land - dir. Eugene Jarecki
Sea Sorrow - dir. Vanessa Redgrave
They - dir. Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
24 Frames - dir. Abbas Kiarostami

That's the line-up for Cannes 2017, with possibly one or two more missing from the selection. Cannes also announced that they will be showing a new virtual reality (VR) film made by Alejandro González Iñárritu called Carne Y Arena. This is the first time they've ever included VR in the line-up, and the film runs 1 hour, 20 minutes. There are a total of nine female filmmakers in the selection. I'm intrigued by all the films, there's a good mix from filmmakers all over the world. This year seems to be a particular exciting year with many promising films and even more on the way in the sidebars (Directors' Fortnight, Critics' Week). As always - I'm excited to get back onto the Croisette and start watching films in hopes that we're all floored by some unforgettable cinema. The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 17th to May 28th in Cannes, France.