The Cannes Film Festival has urged Tehran and Moscow to let outspoken directors Jafar Panahi and Kirill Serebrennikov visit the French Riviera next month as it unveiled the line-up for the 71st edition of the world’s top film gathering.

Screen Daily: Paris-based Celluloid Dreams has acquired world sales rights to Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s new film 3 Faces ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

In a first sale for the film, French distributor Memento Films has taken rights for France.

 The Celluloid Dreams deal continues a long collaboration between its founding president Hengameh Panahi and the filmmaker, dating back to his first feature The White Balloon, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 1995.

 “I started working on Iranian films with Abbas Kiarostami’s films. Jafar was his assistant and Abbas wrote the script of his first film, The White Balloon, which won the Golden Camera at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival,” she said.

 It will be the first time Panahi premieres in Competition in Cannes, after winning the top prizes at Locarno with The Mirror, at Venice with The Circle and Berlin with Taxi Tehran. 3 Faces is about three actresses at different stages of their career. 

 “Cannes Competition has been his dream and this has become reality now with the selection of 3 Faces,” said Celluloid’s Panahi.

 The filmmaker was last in Official Selection at Cannes in 2003 with Crimson Gold which played in Un Certain Regard, winning the special jury award for the section >>>