Veteran filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg, Paul Schrader and Jacques Audiard will compete for the Palme d’Or at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the most important film festival in the world, which will be held from May 14 to 25 and this year it does not have Spanish representation in any of its sections. The inaugural film is directed by the eccentric French director Quentin Dupieux, who will present The Second Act out of competition.
The official competition section is made up of 19 feature films, only four of them directed by women: Andrea Arnold, with Bird; Coralie Fargeat, with The Substance; Payal Kapadia with All we imagine as light and newcomer Agathe Riedinger, who will present Wild diamond. Completing the lineup are the new films by Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenope); Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness); Sean Baker (Anora); Ali Abbasi (The Apprentice); Christophe Honoré (Marcello mio); Kirill Serebrennikov (Limonov-The ballad); Karim Ainouz (Destination Motel), Gilles Lellouche (L’amour ouf); Jia Zhang-Ke (Caught by the tides) and Magnis Von Horn (The Girl with the Needle), as reported at a press conference this morning by the director of the contest Thierry Frémaux, accompanied by president Iris Knobloch. All of them will be evaluated by a jury chaired this year by Greta Gerwig, responsible for the blockbuster Barbie.
After winning the Palme d’Or in 1979 with Apocalypse Now, ex aequo with The Tin Drum, Coppola will return to the competition with Megalópolis, a science fiction blockbuster financed by the American director himself and with a cast headed by Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito.
The Canadian Cronenberg, a devotee of body horror, is another of the festival’s well-known figures. If two years ago he competed with Crimes of the Future, now he will do so with The Shrouds, which tells how a businessman, recently widowed, builds a device that allows him to connect with the dead inside a shroud. Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger lead the cast of this fantastic thriller.
Others who are repeating are the American Baker, who already participated in 2021 with Red rocket and now brings to Cannes a dramatic comedy set in the universe of sex work titled Anora. The Iranian Abbasi competed with Holy Spider in 2022 and in The Apprentice he dares to tell the story of how a young Donald Trump started his real estate business in New York during the seventies and eighties. Sebastian Stan gets into the shoes of the former US president.
For his part, the Russian Serebrennikov, who competed for the Palme d’Or two years ago with Tchaikovsky’s Woman, will try again with Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie, a portrait of the radical Soviet poet Eduard Limonov, played by Ben Whishaw.
The Italian Sorrentino will bring Parthenope, a film set in Naples and starring Gary Oldman. Paul Schrader, who released The Master Gardener in theaters last year, is back at the age of 77, reuniting Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi and Uma Thurman in the drama Oh Canada. After winning four Oscars with Poor Creatures, the Greek Lanthimos is not wasting any time either and will come to the Croisette with his latest proposal, Kind of Kindness, a fable in the form of a triptych in which he once again collaborates with Emma Stone.
Out of competition, and as announced a few days ago, Furiosa: From the Mad Max saga, directed by George Miller, will be screened for the first time, as well as Kevin Costner’s new film on both sides of the camera, Horizon. An American Saga, two chapters on the Civil War. This year the Honorary Palme d’Or will go to the director, producer and screenwriter George Lucas, responsible for such blockbuster sagas as Star Wars or Indiana Jones.
