Filipino director Lav Diaz has hinted that a shortened cut of his long-awaited feature starring Gael García Bernal as 16th Century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan could premiere in Cannes this May.
Speaking in a masterclass at the Doha Film Festival’s Qumra event on Sunday, Diaz said he had just finished cutting a two hour, 45-minute version of the film, even though his long-term plan is for a nine-hour movie.
Quizzed on whether it might be bound for Venice, where he won the Golden Lion in 2016 for The Woman Who Left and has also debut another five films, the director replied that rather it was aiming for a debut in “an important festival in France”.
Diaz was last in Cannes Official Selection with Norte, the End of History, which premiered in Un Certain Regard in 2013, while his film The Halt (Ang Hupa) premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2019.
Produced by Andergraun Films (Spain), Rosa Filmes (Portugal) and Epicmedia Productions (Philippines), the film follows Beatrice Barbosa de Magallanes who fights for her survival and that of her children, while her navigator husband tries to carry out an impossible maritime expedition.
The feature, shot in Portugal, Spain and the Philippines, was first announced in 2019, but mystery has swirled around the status of the film and when it was likely to surface at a festival.
The Cannes Film Festival will reveal the bulk of its Official Selection in a press conference in Paris on Thursday, while Directors’ Fortnight will unveil its line-up on April 15.