Cannes Film Festival selection 2014

Here is our first peek into the new release films that will be showing at the cinematic event of the year - Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes) 2014. 

Once again, the Hollywood blockbusters have been bypassed, and Brits will be happy to see home-grown talent on the programme, as British directors and Palme d’Or winners Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, fight it out for the festival’s highest accolade. Loach has won the award in 2006, for his emotional look at Irish republicanism in The Wind That Shakes the Barley. His latest movie Jimmy's Hall will be his last narrative film. Leigh received the Palme for Secrets & Lies (1996). In this year’s festival, the much-underrated actor Timothy Spall, who worked on Secrets & Lies with Leigh, will be reuniting with the director as the eccentric, obsessive artist Mr Turner in his latest flick. 

Another one not to miss when it hits our shores, is Two Days, One Night, directed by two-time Palme’ d’Or winners, the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Starring Marion Cotillard, it tells the story of a young woman trying to convince her colleagues to bypass bonuses, so that she can remain employed, and is sure to be a feast for the eyes, as well as the soul. 

If you were a fan of director Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist, you will be thrilled to hear he is following it up with what looks to be another Academy Award hopeful, The Search, although fans of festival darling Woody Allen, may be disappointed, as he has this year been omitted from the programme, despite convincing rumours that he would be bringing Magic in the Moonlight to Cannes. 

Will Jean-Luc Godard come to Cannes this year? The iconic Nouvelle Vague director has been known for shunning the festival. 

Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling will certainly be back but this time as a director, Lost River, shortlisted in Un Certain Regard sidebar.

The festival has also notably included two female directors in its primary offerings, (Cannes regular Naomi Kawase with Still the Water and Italian director Alice Rohrwacher with The Miracles), an encouraging sign that one of the most prestigious film festivals is finally recognising the influence of its own voice. 

This year's Cannes film festival jury will be led by Jane Campion, who beat both Leigh and Loach to the Palme d'Or in 1993 for her film The Piano.

Click here for the full listing of film releases.