by Nathaniel R
The official lineup for the 74th Cannes Film Festival has been announced. It's always an exciting time for cinephiles, doubly so this year since the festival had to be cancelled last season due to COVID-19. This year four actors have multiple films in contention: Tilda Swinton, Charlotte Rampling, Anders Danielsen Lie, and the probably queen of the festival France's Léa Seydoux who has three films in the main competition and another in Un Certain Regard! We already know that Spike Lee will be presiding over the jury, since he was supposed to do that last year (though we don't know who will be on the jury with him yet).
Cannes has been criticized for years for their lack of gender parity in direction. They're likedly to be criticized again with only 4 of the 24 competition films from female auteurs but that's actually a huge improvement for the world's most famous film festival. As per usual French and English language films dominate though there are actually only three films from the USA in competition this year (Flag Day, The French Dispatch, and Red Rocket) Anyway let's look at the official lineup. More to come since there are other sections, too.
24 Official Competition Films
Who will win the Palme D'Or, Director, and Acting prizes. Care to place any bets?
AHED'S KNEE (Nadav Lapid, Israel)
From the director of Synonyms and The Kindergarten Teacher. In short, he's talented and his films can be bracing. The plot involves an Israeli filmmaker and his dying mother?
ANNETTE (Leos Carax, France)
Amazon will release the latest from the perpetually surprising Carax but this sure-to-be strange musical is premiering at Cannes as the Opening Night film. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star.
BENEDETTA (Paul Verhoeven, The Netherlands)
Infamous provocateur and great director Paul Verhoeven's latest is a 17th century set French-language lesbian nun movie that takes place during The Plague. Virginia Efira (Sibyl, Elle) is the leading lady. International stars Charlotte Rampling and Lambert Wilson lend support.
BERGMAN ISLAND (Mia Hansen-Love, France)
An English language drama about an American filmmaking couple making pilgrimage to the island that inspired Sweden's most famous director. Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth, The Phantom Thread's Vicky Krieps, and Norwegian star Anders Danielsen Lie are all in the cast.
CASABLANCA BEATS (Nabil Ayouch, Morocco)
From the director of Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets and Mektoub
COMPARTMENT NO. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen, Finland)
A train trip movie about a student travelling from Moscow to Murmansk who develops an unlikely friendship with miner sharing her compartment. From the director of The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki
DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
A drama about an actor grieving the loss of his playwright wife from the director of Happy Hour and Asako I & II.
FLAG DAY (Sean Penn, USA)
Penn is adapting again, this time from the memoir by Jennifer Vogel about her criminal father. Dylan Penn, the daughter of Sean and Robin Wright, has the leading role. The cast is stacked which probably isn't surprising given who is in the directors chair: Josh Brolin, Eddie Marsan, Sean Penn, Norbert Leo Butz, Dale Dickey, Miles Teller, and Katheryn Winnick
LA FRACTURE (Catherine Corsini, France)
A lesbian drama that takes place in a beseiged hospital during a politically heated protest. Valerie Bruni Tedeschi and Marina Fois star.
FRANCE (Bruno Dumont, France)
IMDb lists this as "On a Half Clear Morning" and "France" as its original title so maybe they're still deciding? Leá Seydoux headlines as a celebrity journalist whose life changes after a car accident.
THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson, USA)
The new all-star Anderson comedy has waited over a year to premiere. It opens in October but it will first premiere at Cannes.
A HERO (Asghar Farhadi, Iran)
His Iranian films have won the Oscar twice (A Separation, The Salesman) but lately he's been experimenting with other countries making movies in French (The Past) and Spanish (Everybody Knows). He's back in Iran for a drama though apart from his own daughter (who played the main couple's daughter in A Separation) the actors are not his usual thespians. No word on the plot yet but given his past films it probably is thematically interesting and involves couples, familes, and secrets.
LINGUI (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Chad)
From the director of A Screaming Man and Dry Season comes a new drama about a Muslim woman trying to get an abortion.
MEMORIA (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
This is the first English language picture for the famed enigmatic Thai filmmaker. Tilda Swinton stars as a woman with "exploding head syndrome". We had to look that up -- the sufferer awakes or falls asleep with the sensation of a loud bomb-like noise. Okay, "Joe" & Tilda. Do your thing.
NITRAM (Justin Kurzel, Australia)
The director of hard confrontational pictures like True History of the Kelly Gang and The Snowtown Murders returns with a drama about a 1996 massacre in Tasmania. Essie Davis (the director's wife and always an exceptional actress), Judy Davis, Caleb Landry Jones (as the killer), and Anthony Lapaglia star.
PARIS 13TH DISTRICT (Jacques Audiard, France)
A romantic quadrangle youth drama from one of France's greatest auteurs.
PETROV'S FLU (Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia)
A day in the life of a comic book artist.
RED ROCKET (Sean Baker, USA)
One of our favourite indie directors (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Starlet) finished his film at the last second for Cannes. Simon Rex stars as a former porn star returning to his hometown. Older Millenials and Gen X-er's might recall that Simon Rex had a brief moment of porn infamy himself after solo masturbation videos he did before becoming famous as a model / MTV VJ were released. The rest of the cast are untrained newbies as per Baker's general practices. Rex seems to have a good sense of humor about himself. His bio says "washed up crisis actor" on Twitter so that might bode well since Baker is very talented at guiding actors.
THE RESTLESS (Joachim LaFosse, Belgium)
The director of the emotionally brutal Our Children is back with a drama about bipolar disorder. Damien Bonnard and Leïla Bekhti star.
Lea Seydoux and Simone Coopo on the set of THE STORY OF MY WIFE
THE STORY OF MY WIFE (Ildikó Enyedi, Hungary)
Hungary's most internationally reknowned female director returns following her Oscar nominated On Body and Soul with a French-language period romance starring ubiquitous Gallic movie stars like Louis Garrel and Léa Seydoux as well as Simone Coopo, Romane Bohringer, and Jasmine Trinca.
THREE PIANOS
THREE PIANOS (Nanni Moretti, Italy)
A dramedy about multiple families in a condominium. Moretti is a longtime Cannes favourite and his films have won Best Director (Caro Diario, 1993), the Palme D'Or (The Son's Room, 2001), and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Mia Madre, 2015)
TITANE (Julia Ducournau, France)
All we know is that Titane refers to a metal with "high tensile strength" which has "pronounced biocompatability" so perhaps this is a sci-fi drama? Vincent Lindon, Nathalie Boyer, Agathe Rousselle (pictured), are in the cast. This is Ducournau's sophomore feature. She previously made a big splash with the cannibal drama Raw (2016).
TOUS S'EST BIEN PASSÉ (François Ozon, France)
Ever-prolific Ozon follows up the gay coming of age film Summer of 85 with a new dramedy -- the English language title would be "Everything Went Well" based on a 2013 novel. The cast includes Ozon regular / legend Charlotte Rampling, German legend Hanna Schygulla, and is led by Sophie Marceau as a woman who is helping her father to die after he suffers a stroke.
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Joachim Trier, Norway)
Norway's greatest (Oslo August 31st, Reprise, Thelma) returns and for the first time the film is a comedy (!). It covers four years in the life of a young woman. Trier's regular muse Anders Danielsen Lie co-stars.