Cannes update: festival adds five docs, including one on Cary Grant's LSD experience

'He started a cure of LSD to free himself from his demons. For the first time... he retraces his journey.'

The Cannes Film Festival has more than doubled its lineup of documentary films with the announcement of the Cannes Classics program.

Five nonfiction titles -- all of them related to cinema in some way -- will play in the Classics section, which also includes restored versions of fiction films (among them L'Atalante, Belle de Jour and All That Jazz).

Of particular interest to American audiences may be Becoming Cary Grant by Mark Kidel, an exploration of the actor's use of LSD in an attempt to "free himself from his demons."
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The story of a man in search of himself and the love he did not find in his life.

--From the Cannes Classics description of Becoming Cary Grant

"For the first time, with his words, [Grant] retraces his journey. The story of a man in search of himself and the love he did not find in his life," Cannes Classics programmers wrote of the documentary. The film is based on an unpublished memoir by the British-born actor. Jonathan Pryce voices Grant's words.

Showtime is set to premiere the documentary on June 9. The pay channel previously released a trailer for it.

Of considerable interest to cinephiles is another of the Cannes Classics offerings, Filmworker, directed by Tony Zierra. It tells the story of the long collaboration between Leon Vitali and Stanley Kubrick. 

"Young actor Leon Vitali abandoned his prosperous career after Barry Lyndon to become the faithful right hand of director Stanley Kubrick. For more than two decades, Leon... played a crucial role behind the scenes by helping Kubrick. A complex and interdependent relationship...," programmers wrote.

A still image of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," directed by Stanley Kubrick. Leon Vitali is credited as "personal assistant to director" on the film. Photo from Warner Bros.

These are the three additional films announced as part of the Cannes Classics section: 

>La belge histoire du festival de Cannes (The Belgian's Road to Cannes) by Henri de Gerlache 

A joyful road movie to discover the Belgian cinema which has been at Cannes for 70 years. The filmmakers of yesterday are talking with those of today to paint a picture of a free and heterogeneous cinema. A "Belgian story" of the biggest festival in the world.
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>David Stratton - A Cinematic Life by Sally Aitken 

A love adventure of film critic David Stratton with his adopted country, Australia, which led him to understand himself. It is also the glorious history of Australian cinema and its creators told by this Cannes-regular film-lover interested in the world.

>Jean Douchet, l'enfant agité by Fabien Hagège, Guillaume Namur, Vincent Haasser

Three young cinephiles follow Jean Douchet, question his friends and former students. This documentary reveals the man and his critical philosophy, a part of the history of the Cahiers du Cinéma and this Art of loving to which he has devoted his existence.