Deauville American Film Festival Adds ‘Snowpiercer’ as Closing Film

PARIS — Snowpiercer is set to break on the beaches of Normandy: the international premiere of Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi thriller has been announced as the closing film of the Deauville American Film Festival on Sept. 7.

FILM REVIEW: Snowpiercer

Organizers have added additional international starpower to a festival that is already anticipating Steven Soderbergh, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Cate Blanchett and John Travolta to walk the red carpet, with Famke Janssen joining the jury. 

Lee Daniels’ The Butler will serve up its French premiere during the week, with Lovelace, Pain & Gain, Parkland, Sunlight Jr., The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, The Wait, and Upstream Color also set to join the Oscar-hopeful on the official screening slate.

Scott Walker’s The Frozen Ground, starring festival honoree Nicolas Cage, has also been added to the lineup.

Sundance sniper-story hit Blue Caprice and terrorism thriller Night Moves, which will premiere at the Venice International Film Festival just days before its Deauville debut, have been added to the competition slate.

Bully director Larry Clark will take time out from shooting his latest film, the French-language The Smell of Us, in Paris to attend a tribute at the festival. In homage the festival will screen his complete works. 

As part of the festival’s newer television programming slate, French-produced JFK assassination docudrama The Curse of Edgar will make its debut before airing on Planete+ here.

Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan will teach a master class on Sept. 6, in addition to participating in a roundtable with The Curse of Edgar writer Marc Dugain, The Returned director Fabrice Gobert, Treme writer Eric Overmyer, and Transporter writer Frank Spotnitz on Sept. 7.

The festival has added a new social-media-focused panel called “Tweet Me If You Can” that will examine the use of the microblogging site by French and American actors.

The weeklong festival kicks off Aug. 30 with Behind the Candelabra as the opening film and runs until Sept. 8.