I Cannes But Hope: A Short Wish List For Cannes 2015

The 68th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be held from 13 to 24 May 2015. This year's jury president Uwe Boll will not announce the line-up until later in April, but here are three films that I hope are included:

Garden of Storms - Dir. Frank Fustian

The debut film of Terrence Malick's longtime Assistant Director Frank Fustian shows a pupil surpassing his master. Taking Malick's sensual visual expression to even loftier heights, Garden of Storms dares the audience to liberate their minds from the crushingly lowbrow standards of watchable Hollywood fare with achingly shot poetic scenes of man's relationship with both the nature inside and around him - nature that is presented as both beguiling and capricious. Starring Michael Shannon and Tom Hardy as two stoic brothers in 1970's California fighting to keep their family farm afloat in the face of drought, torn apart by the arrival of a mysterious and alluring water diviner played to perfection by Maureen Lipman.

Inhabit - Dir. Francisca DeLapini

Before embarking on her 13-year undertaking to film inside one home for every country of the world, documentarian DeLapini burned down her own house in Berlin as a spectacular act of sacrificial ironic art. Leaving behind everything but her camera and the clothes on her back, DeLapini travelled across every border on Earth, stopping only to examine the workings, architecture and inhabitants of houses she deemed "truthful". Not only a stunning experiment in execution, but a remarkable mix of poetic and observational documentary in form. Inhabit has much to say about where people lay their hats, and whether we know where our hats truly lie.

Labdát Rúgni (eng. Forgotten War) -  Dir. Béla Tarr

The beloved Hungarian director Bela Tarr, having established himself among critics as one of the world's greatest filmmakers with slow-moving but visual striking dramas such as Werckmeister Harmonies, announced his retirement in 2012 in order to found a film school in Croatia. This year, however, he returned to work and enacted a surprising change of style - leaving behind his usual long takes and reduced shot count in favour of more action packed cinema. Forgotten War is Tarr's first ever genre production, an ultraviolent action thriller set in the Baltic War of Liberation, taking influence from the likes of John Woo and the Wachowskis. The film delivers faced-paced and frenetic set pieces without betraying Tarr's trademark breathtaking black-and-white visuals (with the copious amounts of blood digitally rendered in a vivid crimson red). Worthy of particular praise is the stand out performance of surprising presence from the diminutive Angrus Potzchma, a Tarr staple.

Let me know in the comments below what films you think should be welcomed to the red carpets of Cannes this coming May. Or don't. Whatever.