The Cannes Film Festival only screens the best of the best. Well, theoretically. For two weeks in May, the most acclaimed auteurs screen their latest masterpiece, visionary voices are discovered, and arthouse cinema is treated with the glitz and glamour usually reserved for Tom Cruise – except, this year, Cruise will be promoting Mission: Impossible on the Croisette, but you get my point.
With strands ranging from Official Competition (around 21 films battle it out for the Palme d’Or) to Un Certain Regard, Cannes is a launchpad for awards hopefuls and indie underdogs battling for media attention. Recent Palme d’Or winners like Parasite and Anora even went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
Yet the selection process isn’t perfect. With distributor politics, the whims of programmers, and loyalties to ageing auteurs affecting the lineup, the festival is also famous for films that are booed at their premiere – sometimes a misunderstood, avant-garde game-changer like L’Avventura or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and other times because they’re atrocious. Who can forget the 2019 Palme d’Or contender Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo? It was deemed so bad, ethically and artistically, it never screened again.
What’s clear, then, is that Cannes requires careful planning. Not just in terms of flights, accommodation, and finding a way to attend screenings (there’s still time to start a blog), but figuring out what will be a Megalopolis-sized declaration of artistic ambition, and what will unfortunately be Megalopolis. Here’s our pick of the films to be excited about at this year’s Cannes.
Shot entirely in French, Linklater’s tribute to the French New Wave documents the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless: it stars Zoe Deutch as Jean Seberg, plus local actors playing legendary figures like Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, and Agnès Varda. Linklater has always been indebted to French cinema – the talkiness of Éric Rohmer is all over the Before trilogy – so there’s fascination over whether he impersonates his filmmaking heroes, or instils his own Linklater-isms with Jacques Rivette, in a Matthew McConaughey drawl, muttering, “Tres bien, très bien, très bien.”
Before Hereditary, Aster thought his debut feature would be Eddington, a violent Western about a sheriff battling locals during a pandemic. Evidently, Aster’s rewritten the script: it’s now a 2020-set satire that, allegedly, namedrops real US politicians. (A leaked draft of Beau Is Afraid ended with Beau meeting Michelle Obama on a boat – this obviously didn’t materialise in the final film.) Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler and Emma Stone, Eddington also sees Aster with a new cinematographer, Darius Khondji, who compared Aster to Bergman and Polanski – presumably for filmmaking reasons.
Trier could have used the acclaim surrounding The Worst Person in the World to sell out. Instead, he and his regular co-writer, Eskil Vogt, have reteamed for another Oslo-set drama, this one starring Renate Reinsve from Worst Person alongside Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. Based around conflict in a family home, Trier’s sixth feature includes Elle Fanning as an American movie star visiting Norway. Trier has only ever directed great films with sharp dialogue to match smart genre inversions, and the early acquisition deals for Sentimental Value suggest that pattern will continue.
You haven’t heard of Schilinski – but, a month from now, she could be a Palme d’Or winner. It’s been rumoured for months that Sound of Falling was destined for the Official Competition at Cannes, and its placement is an indicator of quality: it has no stars to walk the red carpet, and Schilinski’s previous film, Dark Blue Girl, was so under-the-radar it didn’t get a UK release. Set on a German farm, the century-spanning story follows four girls across four time periods. It was previously announced as The Doctor Says I’ll Be Alright, But I’m Feelin’ Blue. That it was retitled suggests it’s being eyed up for global success.
All that’s known about Panahi’s latest film, which he shot in secret, is that “a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences”. However, it’s guaranteed that the Iranian filmmaker has plenty to say – in his own sly, subversive manner, of course. After all, in 2022, Panahi was once again imprisoned for criticising the Iranian government, and in 2023 he was only released after going on hunger strike. Whatever happens, you can’t doubt the filmmaker behind The White Balloon, Offside, and This Is Not a Film.
Premiering in the Un Certain Regard strand, Dickinson’s debut feature as a writer and director is an exploration of the homelessness crisis in London. Starring Frank Dillane and not Dickinson, the film is presumably of some quality if it’s been selected for Cannes, while Dickinson has collaborated with great filmmakers in the past like Steve McQueen, Brit Marling, and Ruben Östlund. (He was also in Maleficent and See How They Run, though.) Dickinson’s artistic vision is a bit of a mystery as he’s only helmed a handful of shorts. If I were to guess, Urchin will be closer to the low-budget, hard-hitting style of County Lines, in which Dickinson had a supporting role.
Twin brothers born in Gaza, Arab and Tarzan Nasser are a filmmaking duo responsible for the 2013 short Condom Lead, the first Palestinian film to compete at Cannes, as well as Dégradé and Gaza Mon Amour. With Once Upon a Time in Gaza, they’re in the Un Certain Regard strand with a crime-thriller starring Nader Abd Alhay. Shot in Jordan, the film involves revenge, murder, and, according to a distributor, it “echoes the terrible current events in this region”.
One of the few Cannes films to release their trailers in advance, Renoir looks absolutely stunning and guaranteed to make you cry. Hayakawa was previously at Cannes for Plan 75, a Black Mirror-esque sci-fi about enforced euthanasia for the elderly. Renoir, though, is a coming-of-age drama in 1980s Tokyo about an 11-year-old girl, Fuki, whose father is dying of cancer. As Hayakawa told Dazed in her interview for Plan 75, Renoir is based on her own childhood experience with grief – and it’s intended to be a complete 180-turn from Plan 75.
This year, Josh O’Connor has two films competing for the Palme d’Or. There’s Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, and also Hermanus’s The History of Sound, a gay love story in which O’Connor co-stars with Paul Mescal. Set in the 1910s, the adaptation of Ben Shattuck’s short story follows O’Connor and Mescal as they travel around Maine to record folk musicians. It sounds a little like whatever algorithm was used to cast the Beatles film, but Hermanus is the talented filmmaker behind Moxie and the premise is enticing.
After shocking, repulsing, and ultimately winning over audiences with Raw and her Palme d’Or-winner Titane, Ducournau’s third feature is, according to rumours, her most divisive feature to date – pretty impressive considering that her films are infamous for audience members passing out at festivals. With Alpha, her first English-language feature, the French writer-director has cast Emma Mackey, Tahar Rahim, and Golshifteh Farahani in a 1980s period drama about an 11-year-old girl in New York amidst the Aids epidemic. Prepare to argue effusively with your friends about whatever surprises Ducournau has in store.
