Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in “Loving.” (Focus Features)
Austin director Jeff Nichols is having quite a year. Variety is reporting that his new movie, “Loving,” will have its world premiere in Cannes in May, only a few months after “Midnight Special” had its world premiere in Berlin.
“Loving” stars Joel Edgerton, who was in “Midnight Special,” and Ruth Negga, who’ll be seen in AMC’s upcoming series “Preacher, as an interracial couple who were married in 1958, only to have their home state of Virginia jail them and then banish them. They decided to fight back and took Loving v. Virginia to the Supreme Court. As most people know, the court decided they had every right to be married.
Nichols wrote the screenplay as well, based in part of Nancy Buirski’s documentary “The Loving Story.”
Focus Features, the distributor of “Loving,” obviously has high hopes for the film. It will be released in the United States on Nov. 4, with a larger rollout on Nov. 11, positioning it as a prime contender for next year’s Oscars race.
Other U.S. titles slated for Cannes, which hasn’t yet announced its lineup, are expected to be Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster,” with George Clooney and Julia Roberts; Sean Penn’s “The Last Face,” starring Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem; and Woody Allen’s “Café Society,” with Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg. The presence of these titles in Cannes were first reported by Variety.
