Early this morning, journalists congregated around Thierry Frémaux for the announcement of the 77th Cannes Film Festival Official Selection. The director shared titles from various sections, confirming some suspected rumors and setting the world of cinephilia abuzz. As ever, the main focus is on the Competition titles, as the next Palme d'Or may be among the films already announced. But of course, a project or two are usually added before the festivities start at the Croisette, so our champion may remain in mystery. Many predicted Audrey Diwan's Emmanuelle remake to be selected, for instance, but the Happening director was notoriously absent from today's dispatch.
In the past few years, The Film Experience has had two parallel coverages, and we hope to keep the tradition. There's Elisa Giudici on the ground, reviewing new films through her festival diary. And then there's my Cannes at Home project, focused on past projects by the competing auteurs. Let's go down the list…
THE APPRENTICE, Ali Abbasi
After experiments in horror and the success of both Border and Holy Spider, Abbasi returns to the Official Competition with his first American film. A biopic of sorts, The Apprentice centers around a young Donald Trump, played by Sebastian Stan. Maria Bakalova and Jeremy Strong also star as Ivanka Trump and Roy Cohn.
MOTEL DESTINO, Karim Aïnouz
Described as a love story in the Brazilian Northeast, Motel Destino sees Aïnouz return to the Main Competition after Firebrand's lukewarm reception at last year's festival. I'll always be excited for new projects from this director, especially when they're lensed by such extraordinary artists as Hélène Louvart.
BIRD, Andrea Arnold
If the pattern continues, the British filmmaker will leave the Croisette with another Jury Prize in hand. She's won that honor thrice already for Red Road, Fish Tank, and American Honey. This latest effort marks a return to narrative film after her Cow documentary and counts Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski in its main cast.
EMILIA PEREZ, Jacques Audiard
One of the oddest projects on the list, this film should mark the French director's first foray into the realm of musical cinema. It's also a linguistic departure, supposedly spoken in Spanish within a Mexican setting. Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Edgar Ramirez star in a story about some lawyer helping a cartel boss disappear and transition into womanhood.
ANORA, Sean Baker
Most of this year's contenders will arrive at the Croisette without an international distributor, but not Sean Baker's latest. Anora is already a Neon property, which could mean a golden future. After all, the distributor has picked up the rights of many recent Palme d'Or winners - Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, and Anatomy of a Fall. Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov star in the story of a sex worker, set between New York and Las Vegas.
MEGALOPOLIS, Francis Ford Coppola
Will it be a masterpiece of bonkers late career cinema? Will it be an unmitigated disaster of self-imploding hubris? Who knows? As far as I'm concerned, I can't wait to find out. The long-gestating epic has been decried as an unsellable, anti-commercial and radical nightmare, with a starry cast and high production values bought by the Coppola's wine fortune. Cheers!
THE SHROUDS, David Cronenberg
After Crimes of the Future, I'm ready to follow Cronenberg into whatever path he sees fit on this phase of his career. Touted as a narrative enshrined in sorrow, it's the story of a grieving businessman trying to build a device to communicate with the dead. Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce star, with a crew composed of Cronenberg regulars like Howard Shore and Carol Spier.
THE SUBSTANCE, Coralie Fargeat
We rarely find a genre director making the leap into the Competition with their sophomore feature. Such is the case of Fargeat, whose only other feature is Revenge, a gruesome tale that nearly crosses over into body horror. Little is known about The Substance, but we have its main cast. Margaret Qually, Dennis Quaid, and Demi Moore are all involved.
GRAND TOUR, Miguel Gomes
Obviously, going into the festivities blind, I'll be rooting for my countryman Miguel Gomes. The Portuguese director is one of my favorite artists working today, and his latest has been described as a vague return to some of the same milieus he explored in Tabu – which should have won the Berlin Bear! Set across Asia in 1917, the film was shot by an enviable team of cinematographers. Gui Liang, Sayobhu Mukdeeprom, and Rui Poças share the credit, promising one of 2024's most visually ravishing features.
MARCELLO MIO, Christophe Honoré
Transgressing the porous barrier between fiction and non-fiction, Marcello Mio is a comedy reflecting on the legacy of Marcello Mastroianni. Playing a version of herself, Chiara Mastroianni decides to embody her father, and doing it with such conviction, others start to call her "Marcello." Catherine Deneuve, Melvil Poupaud, Fabrice Luchini, and Nicole Garcia also star, perchance playing themselves.
CAUGHT BY THE TIDES, Jia Zhangke
Described as the story of a Chinese woman living to herself in silence, this mysterious picture is meant to celebrate the Belle Epoque with songs and dance. Yet, it's also contemporary and involves a robot, judging by the first released still. Tao Zhao stars in the lead role, as is usual in director Jia's cinema, and she's sure to be extraordinary. She always is. Maybe she can even win the Best Actress prize she has deserved multiple times before.
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, Payal Kapadia
Despite being one of the biggest film industries in the world, Indian cinema is seldom selected for Cannes. Payal Kapadia's latest endeavor marks the first such title in three decades. It's even more impressive when you consider the nature of the director's past works, blending experimental technique and documentary pursuits. Her feature debut, A Night of Knowing Nothing, won the Golden Eye prize for Best Documentary at Cannes 2021.
KINDS OF KINDNESS, Yorgos Lanthimos
Hot on the heels of his Golden Lion and Oscar-winning Poor Things, the Greek director is back with another English-language project. This one is supposedly fragmented across various stories, starring a cast of past collaborators and some new names. Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, Hunter Schafer, and Joe Alwyn are all involved. Efthimis Filippou also returns as Lanthimos' co-writer after being absent from the director's features since 2017's The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
BEATING HEARTS, Gilles Lellouche
Across more than a decade, the actor-turned-director follows the relationship between a middle-class girl and the lower-class boy she falls in love with, separated by circumstance and a prison sentence. Audrey Diwan is one of three co-writers while rising stars Raphaël Quenard and Adèle Exarchopoulos are among the cast. Some reports say this is a musical, pointing to an interesting double feature with Audiard's Emilia Perez.
WILD DIAMOND, Agathe Riedinger
The only first feature of this lot, Wild Diamond concerns a teenager wallowing with dreams of stardom in Southern France. Propelled by her aspirations, she auditions for a reality show. While the cast features many unknowns, the crew is full of promising new names in French cinema, like cinematographer Noé Bach (Animalia), designer Astrid Tonnellier (The Wild Boys), and composer Audrey Ismael (Consent).
OH CANADA, Paul Schrader
Though Master Gardener could have made for a beautiful film testament, Paul Schrader is back with another directorial effort. Oh Canada centers on a draft dodger who escaped the US to Canada, and stars Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Richard Gere, and Michael Imperioli. Even if the film fails to meet expectations, I can't wait to listen to the score written by Phosphorescent.
LIMONOV – THE BALLAD, Kirill Serebrennikov
The dissident Russian filmmaker has been unmoored from his home country for years now, trying to find a place for his cinema in a circuit growing hostile to Russian art in response to the war on Ukraine. Still, he perseveres, returning to the Main Competition after his 2021 biopic, Tchaikovsky's Wife. This is another project in that vein, following Ben Whishaw as the Soviet poet Eduard Limonov.
PARTHENOPE, Paolo Sorrentino
Categorized as a fantasy, the latest project from Sorrentino concerns a woman who bears the name of her city. "Is she a siren or a myth?" asks the film's cryptic description, enticing the imagination and curiosity. Though the project seems based in Italy, Gary Oldman stars in a central role. I'd like to see how that'll work, especially since I'm a hit-or-miss with the director.
THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE, Magnus von Horn
A few years ago, von Horn dazzled me with Sweat, a considered character study that had more to say about human relationships with social media than much bigger movies considering the same themes. His latest is supposed to be a fairytale on the verge of horror, perchance a period piece in shades of silver and shadow.
To my great discontent, this is a very Euro-American list, with only one film from Latin America, two Asian representatives, and nothing at all from Africa or Oceania. The Cannes programmers remain reluctant to look past their favorite regions, presenting a skewed vision of world cinema. Moreover, the record of women directors in the Official Competition remains seven, from last year. One wonders why other festivals like Venice, Berlin, and Locarno have no issue finding worthwhile pictures from women behind the cameras, but the French flounder every year. But what's more irritating is what happens when you look past the Competition and glance at artists relegated to secondary sections.
For example, during his presentation, Frémaux spoke about Peter Ho-Sun Chan's upcoming She Has No Name as one of the year's most important Chinese films. Then why isn't it in Competition? It's especially galling when the director is enjoying some rekindled appreciation thanks to Criterion's spotlighting of his Comrades, A Love Story. There's also the matter of Zhang Ziyi in the lead, marking her return to world-renowned prestige after a few years spent in more commercial and televisual fare. The Special Screenings program is another treasure trove containing new works from respected non-fiction filmmakers like Claire Simon, Raoul Peck, and Sergei Loznitsa. Cannes could do with more documentaries vying for the Palme.
Still in that section, Yolande Zauberman's La Belle de Gaza seems like the festival making a political stance by programming a Palestinian film about the trans experience. Yet, wouldn't that stance be even more powerful if Zauberman was competing in the main section? Moving into the dreaded Cannes Premieres section where Lisandro Alonso and Victor Eríce were dropped last year, we find another cadre of enticing possibilities that might have enriched the Competition. I'm thinking of Nabil Ayouch's Everybody Loves Touda and Rithy Panh's Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot, among other big names.
When one makes such complaints, I understand that a follow-up question tends to be – but what titles should have been left out, then? Having not seen the films, it's difficult to say for sure, but some things are undeniable. With Baker, Cronenberg, Coppola, and Schrader, plus international productions from Abbasi, Audiard, Fargeat, Lanthimos, and Serebrennikov, North American cinema feels overrepresented. Furthermore, I can't wrap my head around Lellouche's selection. Though commercially successful and a hit with the César Awards, his few directorial efforts have lacked the artistic ambition one usually associates with a Cannes Competition slot. I'm eager to be proven wrong.
What about you, dear reader? What do you think of this year's Main Competition at the Croisette? Also, which titles would you like to see covered in Cannes at Home?