Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Coen Brothers, Roman Polanski Will Compete at Cannes

The Cannes International Film Festival announced the lineup for its main competition today, and the film I was hoping for most isn’t there.

Still, there are movies to look forward to. Chief among them is “Inside Llewyn Davis,” by Joel and Ethan Coen, about a Bob Dylan-esque Greenwich Village singer-songwriter in the 1960s, which is supposed to be loosely based on Dave Van Ronk’s memoir, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street.” And Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Fur” will be competing, based on David Ives’s Tony Award-winning play of the same name.

What won’t be screening is “The Congress,” a part-animated, part-live action film by Israeli director Ari Folman. That’s the same Ari Folman who made the spectacular “Waltz With Bashir” in 2008, which did premiere at Cannes and which went on to be nominated for an Oscar as the Best Foreign Language Film.

“The Congress” is supposed to be based on “The Futurological Congress,” by Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, though plot synopses floating around the Internet make it sound totally different. If it’s anything like the spirit of the book, however, it should be phenomenal. We’ll just have to keep our eyes on Venice, Toronto and Berlin.

Watch the trailer for ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’:

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.