Even though Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood wasn’t announced as a Cannes Film Festival selection this morning, Hollywood Elsewhere is confident it’ll be included. (A well-positioned little bird has told me not to sweat it.) What I’d like to know is, what the hell happened to Pablo Larrain‘s Ema, which also wasn’t announced? Was it deep-sixed, as rumored, because of an alleged Netflix acquisition?

As expected, Pedro Almodovar,’s Pain and Glory and Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life were also announced, in addition to Dexter Fletcher‘s out-of-competition Rocketman and Jim Jarmusch‘s previously confirmed The Dead Don’t Die (competition), which will open the festival on Tuesday, 5.15.

HE is all hopped up about Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor, allegedly some kind of Godfather-ish crime and betrayal flick.

I’m also regarding Nicolas Winding Refn‘s non-competitive Too Old to Die Young — North of Hollywood, West of Hell warily, but with a muted excitement. It’s not a feature but a segment or two from an Amazon crime drama series, starring Miles Teller and Billy Baldwin, that’s slated to pop on 6.14.19.

HE regrets to confirm that Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias & Maxime is now an official competition selection, as Dolan has almost always infuriated me, the exception being Mommy, which I was half-okay with despite hating the lead performance.

Ditto Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite (competition), as HE had enormous problems with the grotesque, family-friendly Okja (“A well-directed megaplex movie for kids, and cliche-ridden like a sonuvabtich”). I respected but didn’t exactly surge with pleasure over Snowpiercer and The Host, but…well, BJH just rubs me the wrong way. Always has, always will.

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne‘s The Young Ahmed will also play in competition….the respectably relentless Dardennes! Not to mention Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You…Loach! And Ira Sachs‘ Frankie.

I’m not down on my knees but what happened to Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies, the Jean Seberg movie with Kristen Stewart?

Other announced films from this morning’s Paris press conference: Atlantique (Mati Diop), Bacarau (Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles), It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman), Les Misérables (Ladj Ly), Little Joe (Jessica Hausner), Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma), Sibyl (Justine Triet), The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu) and the catchily titled The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan).

Un Certain Regard: Adam (Maryam Touzani), Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov), A Brother’s Love, (Monia Chokri), Bull (Annie Silverstein), The Climb (Michael Covino), Evge (Nariman Aliev), Freedom (Albert Serra), Invisible Life (Karim Aïnouz), Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont), Chambre 212 (Christophe Honoré), Papicha (Mounia Meddour), Port Authority (Danielle Lessovitz), Summer of Changsha (Zu Feng), The Swallows of Kabul (Zabou Breitman & Eléa Gobé Mévellec), A Sun That Never Sets (Olivier Laxe) and Zhuo Ren Mi Mi (Midi Z).

Out of Competition: Parasite + The Best Years of a Life (Claude Lelouch), Diego Maradona (Asif Kapadia), La Belle Époque (Nicolas Bedos),

Midnight: The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil (Lee Won-Tae)

Special Screenings: Family Romance (Werner Herzog), For Sama (Waad Al Kateab, Edward Watts), Que Sea Ley (Juan Solanas), Share (Pippa Bianco), To Be Alive and Know It (Alain Cavalier), Tommaso (Abel Ferrara).

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy reports that “there are currently two empty slots reserved for competition — the Tarantino and Abdelatif Kechiche’s Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo, which is said to be four hours long.”

It would’ve been great to see The Lighthouse, a black-and-white thriller from Robert Eggers (The Witch) but it wasn’t announced. The largely silent film costars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe.

Added: Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy is reporting that the festival “has decided to reinstate morning press screenings for movies having their gala world premieres in the evening. But there’s a catch: Only a few hundred journalists — mainly from TV and radio outlets — will be admitted, and they will be hand-picked by the festival, sources close to the situation said.

“There will also be a 5 pm advance screening for other journalists — presumably more print reporters — two hours before the 7 pm gala premieres begin. But again, not all journalists will have access to those screenings. Thierry Fremaux said the fest would weed out non-reporters/critics from advance screenings.

“All reviews will be placed under strict embargo until the credits finish rolling at the public screenings. Any journalist who fails to abide by the embargo will be sent home, as happens at other festivals, Fremaux said.

“The selected journalists will also have to refrain from posting anything on social media.”