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The top five Anglo films vying for the Palme d'Or

Joshua Melvin
Joshua Melvin - [email protected]
The top five Anglo films vying for the Palme d'Or
Tons of Anglo films are vying for top honors at this year's Cannes Film Festival Photo: Valery Hache/AFP

VIDEO: A slew of Anglo directors are vying for the coveted Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival, which opens on Wednesday. Here are trailers for the top British, American and Canadian hopefuls.

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It could be a good year for Anglo directors at the Cannes Film Festival with more than a third of the 18 films up for the Palme d’Or coming from the English-speaking world.

Held almost every year since 1946, the festival is famed as much for launching the careers of filmmakers such as Americans Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino as for its glitzy red carpet photo calls, luxury yachts, star-studded parties and diamond heists.

With a hefty crop of American, British and Canadian films in competition for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, film industry executives and producers are likely cutting deals to secure a share in the next big thing. The show is to run from May 14th-25th this year.

Here The Local has rounded up trailers for five of the top Anglo films that will hit the screen in the south of France:

  • Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s 'Maps to the Stars' is to make its world debut at the festival and traces the troubled Hollywood lives of two former childhood stars. Its stars include Juliannne Moor and John Cusack.

  • British director Ken Loach, who already won the Palme d’Or in 2006, is back with an Irish history-inspired film 'Jimmy’s Hall'. It tells the story of an Irish political activist who runs afoul of local leaders in the 1930s after opening a youth centre.

  • This new film 'The Homesman' from American actor and director Tommy Lee Jones recounts the tale of a curious journey shared by a claim jumper and a pioneer woman. After the woman, played by Hilary Swank, rescues Jones’ character from certain death, he agrees to help her escort three insane women from Nebraska to Iowa.

  • In 'Captives', from Canadian filmmaker  Atom Egoyan, actor Ryan Reynolds plays the role of a father whose daughter is abducted from the back seat of his car. Eight years later, a series of  clues surface, convincing the father his child is still alive. 

  • American director Bennett Miller, known for films 'Capote' and 'Moneyball', is unveiling his new drama 'Foxcatcher' in Cannes. It tells the tale of Olympic gold medalist wrestler Mark Schultz whose brother, also an Olympic wrestler, was shot to death by a member of the Du Pont chemical company dynasty. It stars Steve Carrell and Channing Tatum.

Though out of competition, American-made epic 'Grace of Monaco', will open the festival with a screening on Wednesday. The controversial flick recounts a turbulent chapter in the like of the royal family of Monaco and American icon Grace Kelly. Members of the royal family of Monaco have called the moved "total fiction."

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