Woody Allen film to open Cannes Film Festival 2016
Allen's third film to open the festival creates a record-breaking coup
The 69th Festival International du Film de Cannes will launch with a screening of Woody Allen’s new film, Café Society. It’s a record-breaking coup for the New York director who has already opened the Festival twice, in 2002 with Hollywood Ending, and again in 2011 with Midnight in Paris.
You can love him or hate him, Woody Allen is undoubtedly one of the greatest filmmakers of our time. At the age of 80 he is still incredibly active in the world of cinema and continues to make quirky romantic films that will entertain as well as make you feel a little uncomfortable and voyeuristic.
Café Society will screen in Cannes on Wednesday 11th May in the Palais des Festivals’s Grand Théâtre Lumière. The film tells the story of a young man who arrives in Hollywood during the 1930s hoping to work in the film industry, falls in love, and finds himself swept up in the vibrant café society that defined the spirit of the age.
The Board of Directors of the film festival will choose and invite films which will be presented in three sections; Competition, Out of Competition or for Un Certain Regard. Café Society is an official Out of Competition title and will in fact be Allen's fourteenth Out of Competition selection at Cannes, from Manhattan in 1979 to Irrational Man in 2015.
In France, the film's release in cinemas is scheduled to coincide with the official opening of the Festival de Cannes on Wednesday 11th May, 2016. The 69th Festival International du Film de Cannes will take place between 11th and 22nd May, 2016. The Competition Jury will be presided over by George Miller, and the Official Selection titles are due to be announced on 14th April.
