At a press conference in Paris this morning, Cannes film festival artist director Thierry Frémaux and president Pierre Lescure announced the lineup of the 75th edition of the French film festival, which does not include any Latin American entries in the official competition.
The only Latin American title announced this morning was the Costa Rican film Domingo and the Mist / Domingo y la niebla, the second feature film by Ariel Escalante Meza, which will have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard competition.
Fremaux mentioned that few additional titles for the official competition will be made public in the next few days for the festival taking place May 17—28 in the French Riviera. If no Latin American film gets announced in that final batch, the 75th edition will mark the seventh edition since 2000, with no Latin American Palm d'Or contender.
For the most part, the Cannes Film Festival has had a distant relationship with Latin America. Since the beginning of this new century, in which Latin America has gone through a major renaissance transforming the region into an international epicenter of cinema, the representation in the official competition at the French Rivera has been timid, to put it mildly.
Below is the complete list of the Latin American films (or co-productions ) that have competed for the Palm d'Or. Productions by 15 filmmakers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, have participated in the official competition this century, and 2008 was a record breaking year with four Latin American titles in competition, followed by 2006 with three.
2000 Estorvo, Ruy Guerra
2001 N/A
2002 N/A
2003 Héctor Babenco, Carandiru
2004 Walter Salles, The Motorcycle Diaries and Lucrecia Martel, The Holy Girl
2005 Carlos Reygadas, Battle in Heaven
2006 Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel; Adrián Caetano, Crónica de una fuga, Guillermo del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth
2007 Carlos Reygadas, Silent Light
2008 Lucrecia Martel, The Headless Woman; Pablo Trapero, Leonora; Fernando Meirelles, Blindess; Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, Linha de Passe.
2009 N/A
2010 Alejandro González Iñarritu, Beautiful
2011 N/A
2012 Carlos Reygadas, Post Tenebras Lux and Walter Salles, On the Road
2013 Amat Escalante, Heli
2014 Damián Szifron, Wild Tales
2015 Michel Franco, Chronic
2016 Kleber Mendonça Filho, Aquarius
2017 N/A
2018 N/A
2019 Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dorneles, Bacurau
2020 Cannes Label: Fernando Trueba, Memories of My Father, and João Paulo Miranda Maria, Memory House
2021 Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria
2022 N/A
(*) In 2002, Argentine-born director Gaspar Noé participated with Irreversible, and a year later Chilean-born filmmkaer Raúl Ruiz participated with That Day / Ce jour-là, for practical purposes—being both an all French production—they were not considered in the list.
(**) Both Memories of My Father by Spanish director Fernando Trueba and Memoria by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, were largely Colombian productions.
