In what looks to be another robust year in the making, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will bring together several iconic filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola with “Megalopolis” starring Adam Driver, George Miller with “Furiosa” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as George Lucas who will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or. Kevin Costner will also be on hand with the first installment of his Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga.”
Beyond the major studio titles, one of the features attracting the most attention on the Croisette could be Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” which sees Sebastian Stan take on the role of a Donald Trump in a biopic examining his time as real estate businessman in the 1970s and ’80s. Outside of competition, Irish director Lorcan Finnegan leaps from Critics’ Week (where he screened “Vivarium” in 2019) to official selection with the midnight movie “The Surfer,” featuring Nicolas Cage in the title role.
International movies slated for Cannes’ competition include Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino”; Jia Zhang-Ke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl With the Needle” and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov: The Ballad.”
Last year, the festival set a record in terms of female representation, inviting seven female directors to Official Competition. The Palme d’Or was ultimately rewarded to Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall,” just the third time a woman has won the festival’s top honor. This year, the number of women in competition stands at just four.
From England, “American Honey” director Andrea Arnold returns to competition with “Bird,” a gritty handheld portrait of a suburban girl trying to escape her destiny. Fargeat makes her feature debut with “The Substance,” a bloody genre movie. Indian director Payal Kapadia will unveil narrative feature “All We Imagine as Light,” three years after winning the festival’s documentary prize. Hailing from the south of France, Agathe Riedinger brings her debut feature “Wild Diamond,” a contemporary coming-of-age story about a young girl who blossoms through a virtual persona on social media.
Hollywood has a slightly lighter presence due to a combination of factors – including last year’s actors and writers strikes, which created production delays, as well as a tough economy — but this year’s festival will see no shortage of glamour and stars on the red carpet. Nearly half of the films competing shot in English — possibly a record in recent history. These include movies from foreign filmmakers, such as Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” Fargeat with “The Substance” and Lanthimos with “Kinds of Kindness.” Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” meanwhile, shot in English and Spanish. As previously announced, “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig will be presiding over the jury.
The lineup was unveiled by Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch on Thursday at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris, where impatient French and international film journalists gathered.
In her opening speech, Knobloch said the festival will now expand beyond the Palais des Festivals and into the Palm Beach, a venue located on the opposite side of the Croisette that is currently being remodeled. Knobloch also said the Cannes Film Market has already lured more than 14,000 accredited professionals from 120 countries.
“This selection was not particularly easy to make,” Frémaux said. “As Iris just said it, last year was very successful but we didn’t know it would be last year when we were sitting here.”
Elsewhere in the lineup, Cannes will feature actors-turned-directors Lætitia Dosch and Noémie Merlant. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” star Merlant brings her sophomore feature “The Balconettes” — a feminist comedy set in Marseilles, co-written by Céline Sciamma — to the midnight section. Dosch, a Cannes discovery who starred in “Jeune Femme,” directed the canine courtroom drama “Who Let the Dog Bite?” which will screen in Un Certain Regard alongside Louise Courvoisier’s “Vingt Dieux!” And in Special Screenings, Yolande Zauberman presents “The Beauty of Gaza,” a film about trans Palestinians who cross from Gaza to Tel Aviv to live their true identities.
“No need to tell you that this film was written and filmed before the war and it takes a particular resonance today and continues to explore this painful territory in our planet,” Frémaux said.
Besides Fargeat and Audiard, the other French filmmakers in competition are Gilles Lellouche with “L’Amour Ouf,” a music-filled romance starring Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil, and featuring choreography by (La) Horde; Christophe Honoré’s “Marcello Mio” starring Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni; and Agathe Riedinger who is making her feature debut with “Diamant Brut” starring Malou Khezibi, Andrea Bescond and Idir Azougli.
Frémaux suggested more titles will be added to the competition as well. “We may add, because right now we’re not at the usual number of 21 of 22 films in competition,” he said. “It’s in the reflections that we will be having in the days to come.” A couple movies were widely expected to turn up in competition — Audrey Diwan’s erotic drama “Emmanuelle” starring Merlant and Naomi Watts, and Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths.”
In Frémaux’s first and only interview ahead of the presser, the festival boss said Cannes had a 20% rise in accreditation requests. “We’re going to surpass the 2,000 films submitted for the selection. The interest for the festival is clear, and no matter what, it’s the films that create the atmosphere each year,” he said.
Last year was a milestone edition for the festival, which world premiered two best picture nominees: Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.”
The Cannes Film Festival will kick off with the world premiere of Quentin Dupieux’s surreal comedy “Second Act” starring Lea Seydoux and Vincent Lindon. The 77th edition runs May 15-25.
See the full lineup below.
OPENER
“Second Act,” Quentin Dupieux
COMPETITION
“All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia
“Anora,” Sean Baker
“The Apprentice,” Ali Abbasi
“Bird,” Andrea Arnold
“Caught by the Tides” (“Feng Liu Yi Dai”), Jia Zhang-Ke
“Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
“The Girl With the Needle,” Magnus von Horn
“Grand Tour,” Miguel Gomes
“Kinds of Kindness,” Yorgos Lanthimos
“L’Amour Ouf,” Gilles Lellouche
“Limonov: The Ballad,” Kirill Serebrennikov
“Marcello Mio,” Christophe Honoré
“Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola
“Motel Destino,” Karim Aïnouz
“Oh, Canada,” Paul Schrader
“Parthenope,” Paolo Sorrentino
“The Shrouds,” David Cronenberg
“The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat
“Wild Diamond” (“Diamant Brut”), Agathe Riedinger
UN CERTAIN REGARD
“Armand,” Halfdan Ullman Tondel
“Black Dog” (“Gou Zhen”), Guan Hu
“The Damned” (Les Damnes”), Roberto Minervini
“L’Histoire de Souleymane,” Boris Lojkine
“Le Royaume,” Julien Colonna
“My Sunshine” (“Boku No Ohisama”), Hiroshi Okuyama
“Norah,” Tawfik Alzaidi
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” Rungano Nyoni
“Santosh,” Sandhya Suri
“September Says,” Ariane Labed
“The Shameless,” Konstantin Bojanov
“Viet and Nam,” Truong Minh Quy
“The Village Next to Paradise,” Mo Harawe
“Vingt Dieux!,” Louise Courvoisier
“Who Let the Dog Bite?” (“Le Proces du Chien”), Lætitia Dosch
OUT OF COMPETITION
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” George Miller
“Horizon, an American Saga,” Kevin Costner
“Rumours,” Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin
“She’s Got No Name,” Chan Peter Ho-Sun
CANNES PREMIERE
“C’est Pas Moi,” Leos Carax
“Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch
“Le Roman de Jim,” Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu
“The Matching Bang” (“En Fanfare”), Emmanuel Courcol
“Miséricorde,” Alain Guiraudie
“Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
“The Balconettes” (“Les Femmes au Balcon”), Noémie Merlant
“I, the Executioner,” Seung Wan Ryoo
“The Surfer,” Lorcan Finnegan
“Twilight of the Warrior Walled In,” Soi Cheang
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
“Apprendre,” Claire Simon
“The Beauty of Gaza” (“La Belle de Gaza”), Yolande Zauberman
“Ernest Cole, Lost and Found,” Raoul Peck
“The Invasion,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Le Fil,” Daniel Auteuil
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