This year’s Cannes Film Festival Competition line-up includes new titles from Jessica Hausner, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Todd Haynes and Jonathan Glazer, while the Out of Competition section features the new Indiana Jones film and the latest from Martin Scorsese. The festival runs May 16-27.
Competition
About Dry Grasses (Tur-Fr-Ger-Swe-Qat)
Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Turkey’s Ceylan won the Palme d’Or for Winter Sleep in 2014, and played in Cannes Competition with Distant in 2003, Climates in 2006, Three Monkeys in 2008, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia in 2011 and The Wild Pear Tree in 2018 — winning the grand prix twice and the director prize once. The writer/director’s seventh Competition film follows a teacher doing a mandatory stint at a small village in Eastern Anatolia. Co-producers include France’s Arte France Cinéma and Sweden’s Film i Väst — both served as co-producers on Ruben Östlund’s 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle Of Sadness.
Contact: Playtime
Anatomy Of A Fall (Fr)
Dir. Justine Triet
French writer/director Triet has been a Croisette regular since her fiction debut Age Of Panic featured in 2013’s Acid programme, followed by In Bed With Victoria (Critics’ Week 2016) and Sibyl (Competition 2019). Described as a Hitchockian drama, Anatomy Of A Fall is about a woman on trial following her husband’s mysterious death in the Alps. Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann) stars alongside Swann Arlaud (By The Grace Of God) and musician/actress Jehnny Beth (Paris, 13th District). Production companies are Les Films Pelléas and Les Films de Pierre, with a France release planned for August via Le Pacte.
Contact: mk2 Films
Asteroid City (US)
Dir. Wes Anderson
France resident Anderson has had two prior cracks at the Palme d’Or — with Moonrise Kingdom in 2012 and The French Dispatch in 2021 — so could the third time be the charm? Anderson regulars and newcomers populate the story of a 1950s junior stargazer convention in a fictitious US desert town, and Cannes’ delegate general Thierry Frémaux will be thrilled by the prospect of a red carpet boasting the likes of Tilda Swinton, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks. Focus Features has set a US release date of June 16.
Contact: Focus Features
Banel & Adama (Fr-Senegal-Mali)
Dir. Ramata-Toulaye Sy
The sole debut feature in Competition comes from the French-Senegalese filmmaker whose previous credits include joint screenwriter on Our Lady Of The Nile (Berlinale 2020) and Sibel (Locarno 2018). Set in a remote village in north Senegal, Banel & Adama follows a young couple who defy their family’s expectations to much disapproval. It is produced by Senegal’s Astou Production, Mali’s DS Productions and France’s La Chauve-Souris, Take Shelter, Canal+ International and Arte France Cinéma. Sy’s 2021 short Astel won the special jury prize at Clermont-Ferrand.
Contact: Martin Gondre, Best Friend Forever
Black Flies (US)
Dir. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
French director Sauvaire made his mark with 2004 documentary Carlitos Medellin, before impressing Un Certain Regard with 2008’s Liberia-shot Johnny Mad Dog, about African child soldiers. After TV film Punk in 2012, starring Béatrice Dalle, he made Thailand-set boxing drama A Prayer Before Dawn — a Cannes Midnight screening in 2017. Sauvaire’s first US film Black Flies stars Tye Sheridan as a New York paramedic working alongside an older colleague, played by Sean Penn. Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt and boxing legend Mike Tyson also star in this Sculptor Media, Force Majeure and Projected Picture Works production.
Contact: FilmNation Entertainment
A Brighter Tomorrow (It-Fr)
Dir. Nanni Moretti
A Palme d’Or winner in 2001 for The Son’s Room, Italy’s Moretti participates in Cannes Competition for the ninth time — following 2021’s ensemble drama entry Three Floors. Described as an unconventional period piece set in Rome’s circus and cinema worlds between the 1950s and 1970s, A Brighter Tomorrow (Il Sol Dell’Avvenire) stars Mathieu Amalric and shot in locations throughout Rome and at the city’s Cinecitta Studios. Moretti produces for his own Sacher Film alongside Fandango’s Domenico Procacci. 01 Distribution released in Italy on April 20.
Contact: Kinology
La Chimera (It-Fr-Switz)
Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
The Italian director returns to Cannes Competition with international co-production La Chimera, starring Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini. The 1980s-set film tells the story of a young English archaeologist caught up in the world of tomb robbers and illegal trafficking of ancient finds. Rohrwacher’s regular collaborator Carlo Cresto-Dina lead produces through his company Tempesta with longtime backers Rai Cinema. Rohrwacher’s The Wonders won the grand prix at Cannes in 2014, while Happy As Lazarro won the best screenplay prize in 2018, and the filmmaker herself served on the Cannes main jury in 2019. Neon has North American rights.
Contact: The Match Factory
Club Zero (Austria-Ger-Fr-UK-Den)
Dir. Jessica Hausner
Austrian filmmaker Hausner’s sixth feature, and second in the English language, is a psychological drama that unravels in an elite boarding school. Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen and Limbo breakout Amir El-Masry star. Producers are Bruno Wagner, Philippe Bober, Mike Goodridge and Johannes Schubert alongside co-producer Per Damgaard Hansen, with an array of European funders including the Austrian Film Institute, Eurimages and BBC Film. Hausner has played at Cannes with all her previous features, apart from Venice premiere Lourdes. Her last film, 2019’s Little Joe, won the best actress award at Cannes for Emily Beecham.
Contact: Coproduction Office
Fallen Leaves (Fin)
Dir. Aki Kaurismäki
Kaurismäki’s 20th feature is a tragicomedy that he says is the fourth film continuing the themes of his working-class trio Shadows In Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988) and The Match Factory Girl (1990). Fallen Leaves follows a shop assistant (Alma Pöysti) and an alcoholic sandblaster (Jussi Vatanen) who meet one night in Helsinki. Kaurismäki continues his collaboration with longtime DoP Timo Salminen, while the Finnish filmmaker’s production company Sputnik produces alongside Bufo and Pandora Film. This is Kaurismaki’s seventh time in Cannes, and fifth in Competition — most recently with Le Havre in 2011.
Contact: The Match Factory
Firebrand (UK)
Dir. Karim Aïnouz
Brazil’s Aïnouz is a familiar face at Cannes, having premiered his debut Madame Sata in 2002, plus The Silver Cliff (2011), The Invisible Life Of Euridice Gusmao (2019) and Mariner Of The Mountains (2021) at the festival. His English-language debut is set in a blood-soaked Tudor court, where Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander) — sixth and last wife to Henry VIII (Jude Law) — puts her life in danger in the name of radical reform. Gabrielle Tana and Carolyn Marks Blackwood produce, with a script from sisters Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth. MBK Productions provided funding.
Contact: FilmNation
Four Daughters (Fr-Tun-Ger-Saudi)
Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
After her first feature Challat Of Tunis opened Cannes’ Acid section in 2014 and her Beauty And The Dogs premiered in Un Certain Regard in 2017, Tunisia’s Ben Hania brings her latest work to Competition. A hybrid documentary following a Tunisian family in which two of the four daughters have disappeared, Four Daughters uses professional actresses in their place to shine a light on the family’s experiences. Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin premiered in Venice Horizons 2020, then becoming the first Tunisian film to be nominated for the international feature film Academy Award.
Contact: The Party Film Sales
Homecoming (Fr)
Dir. Catherine Corsini
French writer/director Corsini has long been a Cannes regular, making her Competition debut with La Répétition in 2001. Following 2021 Competition title The Divide, she competes again with Homecoming (Le Retour), a drama about a woman taking care of a wealthy family on a Corsican holiday, under the shadow of the past. Aïssatou Diallo Sagna — who won a César award for The Divide — stars alongside Virginie Ledoyen and Denis Podalydes. Trailing controversy over allegations about on-set practice, the film is Corsini’s latest collaboration with Elisabeth Perez, producing for Chaz Productions.
Contact: Playtime
Kidnapped (It-Fr-Ger)
Dir. Marco Bellocchio
Italian director Bellocchio has been no stranger to Cannes over his 50-plus-year career, having screened seven films including A Leap In The Dark (1980), My Mother’s Smile (2002) and The Traitor (2019) in Competition. After winning an honorary Palme d’Or in 2021, he returns with this drama inspired by the true story of a Jewish child who was removed from his family in 1858 and raised as a Catholic in the custody of Pope Pius IX. Kidnapped (Rapito) will be distributed in Italy by 01 Distribution.
Contact: The Match Factory
Last Summer (Fr)
Dir. Catherine Breillat
Despite rumours of retirement, Breillat is back with her first film since Abuse Of Weakness premiered at Toronto in 2013. Based on May El-Toukhy’s 2019 Danish film Queen Of Hearts, Last Summer stars Léa Drucker as a lawyer who develops a relationship with her 17-year-old stepson (Samuel Kircher). Olivier Rabourdin and Clotilde Courau also star in the film produced by Saïd Ben Saïd of SBS Productions, the prolific company behind titles including Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta and Ira Sachs’ Frankie. Breillat has launched several titles at Cannes including 2007’s The Last Mistress and 2002 Directors’ Fortnight opener Sex Is Comedy.
Contact: Pyramide International
May December (US)
Dir. Todd Haynes
Haynes’ first feature since documentary The Velvet Underground screened out of Competition two years ago is his fourth to play in Competition, after Wonderstruck in 2017, Carol in 2015 and Velvet Goldmine in 1998. The drama from Killer Films — which got off to a strong start this year with acclaim for Sundance and Berlinale entry Past Lives — stars Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in the tale of a married couple whose once-notorious tabloid romance is tested when an actress arrives to research their past.
Contact: UTA Independent Film Group; CAA Media Finance (US); Rocket Science (international)
Monster (Japan)
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Japanese auteur Kore-eda — who won the Palme d’Or with Shoplifters in 2018 — plays Cannes Competition for the seventh time. His latest centres on a mother who demands answers from a teacher when her son begins acting strangely, and reunites the director with Shoplifters star Sakura Ando. The script is from TV writer Yuji Sakamoto, marking only the second feature by Kore-eda to be scripted by another writer since his 1995 debut drama Maborosi. The score is by Oscar winner Ryuichi Sakamoto — the composer died in March and wrote the music for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which played in Competition in 1983.
Contact: Haruko Watanabe, Gaga Corporation (Asia); Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas (rest of the world)
The Old Oak (UK-Fr-Belg)
Dir. Ken Loach
Two-time Palme d’Or winner Loach is bringing his 15th, and quite possibly final, feature to the festival. Loach’s northeast England-set drama observes the tension and friendships that emerge between the longstanding inhabitants of a former mining town and its newest residents, a group of Syrian refugees, with the local pub becoming contested territory. Sixteen Films produces with the support of the BFI and BBC Film, in co-production with Why Not and Les Films du Fleuve. Dave Turner and Ebla Mari lead the cast.
Contact: Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas
Perfect Days (Japan-Ger)
Dir. Wim Wenders
This marks three-time Oscar-nominated German filmmaker Wenders’ 10th appearance in the Competition line-up, his first being with 1976’s Kings Of The Road and most recently with 2008’s Palermo Shooting. He won the Palme d’Or for 1984’s Paris, Texas, and will be hoping for further jury recognition with Perfect Days, which follows a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he explores the simple beauty of the world around him. It is a co-production between Japan’s Master Mind Limited and Germany’s Wenders Images. Wenders also screens his documentary Anselm, about German painter Anselm Kiefer, out of Competition.
Contact: The Match Factory
The Pot Au Feu (Fr)
Dir. Tran Anh Hung
Vietnam-born Hung won the Caméra d’Or in 1993 with The Scent Of Green Papaya, and returned to Cannes with The Vertical Ray Of The Sun in 2000. In the director’s first film since 2016’s French family saga Eternity, Juliette Binoche plays a cook who has a long-term relationship with a gourmet, played by Benoit Magimel — her co-star in 1999’s The Children Of The Century, and also in Cannes this year with Rosalie. Also known by the title La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, the film is produced by Olivier Delbosc for Curiosa.
Contact: Gaumont
Youth (Spring) (Fr-Lux-Neth)
Dir. Wang Bing
Chinese documentary filmmaker Wang makes his Cannes Competition debut with a 212-minute chronicle of the lives of young Chinese people who come from rural regions to work in Zhili, a textile manufacturing centre near Shanghai. It is produced by House On Fire, Gladys Glover and CS Production and supported by European funds including CNC and Eurimages. Previous Wang documentaries include Bitter Money (best screenplay at Venice Horizons 2016) and Mrs Fang (Golden Leopard winner at Locarno 2017). He has a second film playing in Cannes this year — Man In Black in Special Screenings.
Contact: Agathe Mauruc, Pyramide International
The Zone Of Interest (US-UK-Pol)
Dir. Jonathan Glazer
Glazer makes his Cannes debut with this A24 and Film4-backed Holocaust film — his first feature since Under The Skin premiered at Telluride a decade ago. German actors Sandra Hüller (also in Anatomy Of A Fall) and Christian Friedel (The White Ribbon) star in the drama, which draws on UK writer Martin Amis’s novel of the same name, about the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. It is produced by James Wilson and Ewa Puszczynska, with additional funding from Access Entertainment.
Contact: A24
Out of Competition
Abbé Pierre — A Century Of Devotion (Fr)
Dir. Frédéric Tellier
Buzzy talent Benjamin Lavernhe — also in Cannes with Jeanne Du Barry and recently in French cinemas with Grand Expectations — stars as the titular famed Catholic priest, humanist and resistance fighter known for his work in politics and defence of the homeless. Telling Abbé Pierre’s extraordinary life story against a backdrop of 20th-century French history, the film marks Tellier’s Cannes debut, following 2022’s Goliath, 2018’s Through The Fire and 2014’s SK1. Goliath’s Emmanuelle Bercot co-stars, and it is produced by Wassim Béji’s WY Productions alongside SND Groupe M6, which handles international sales.
Contact: Ramy Nahas, SND
Cobweb (S Kor)
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
A best actor in Cannes last year with Broker, Song Kang-ho returns to the Croisette starring as an obsessive director working in 1970s dictatorship-era South Korea. He is hell-bent on reshooting the ending of his tragicomic film in two days, but cast and crew are confused and uncooperative while censors are meddlesome. Director Kim had A Bittersweet Life (2005) and The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008), which also starred Song, play out of Competition in Cannes. Cobweb co-stars Im Soo-jung, Oh Jung-se, Jeon Yeo-been and Jung Soo-jung.
Contact: Barunson E&A
Elemental (US)
Dir. Peter Sohn
Pixar has a rich tradition at Cannes, having premiered Up (2009) and Inside Out (2015) at the festival, with Soul selected for the 2020 pandemic-year Cannes label edition. Now this latest computer animation from Sohn (2015’s The Good Dinosaur), which is set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic elements of nature — fire, water, air and earth — will close the festival. Leah Lewis (CW series Nancy Drew) and Mamoudou Athie (Netflix horror series Archive 81) voice the water and fire characters who fall in love… but can never touch. Disney’s global release begins on June 6.
Contact: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
The Idol (US)
Dir. Sam Levinson
Cannes is presenting the first two episodes of Euphoria creator Levinson’s controversial new HBO show The Idol, which could use a PR makeover after reports of delays, on-set disruption and a dark change in direction following the departure of original director Amy Seimetz due to contractual obligations. Lily-Rose Depp and show co-creator Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd) star in the tale of a singer in Los Angeles who falls for a club owner who happens to be a cult leader. The series will debut on Max on June 4 in the US.
Contact: HBO
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny (US)
Dir. James Mangold
One of this year’s fun Hollywood tentpoles could enliven the red carpet if Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Mads Mikkelsen and franchise ‘godfather’ and hitherto director (now executive producer) Steven Spielberg turn up. Ford (who is 80 and was de-aged for certain scenes) dons the fedora-style hat and whip as the thrill-seeking archaeologist runs around in the 1960s during the Space Race. Director Mangold’s last film Ford V Ferrari received four Oscar nominations, winning in two craft categories. Disney releases from June 28.
Contact: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Jeanne Du Barry (Fr)
Dir. Maïwenn
Director/co-writer Maïwenn’s sixth feature sees her star as the titular mistress of King Louis XV — played by a French-speaking Johnny Depp. The 18th-century costume drama — which shot in Versailles and throughout France — marks Maïwenn’s return to Cannes as a filmmaker following 2020’s DNA, 2015’s My King (a best actress win for Emmanuelle Bercot) and 2011’s Polisse (jury prize winner). The French cast includes Benjamin Lavernhe, Melvil Poupaud, Noémie Lvovsky, Pascal Greggory, India Hair and Pierre Richard. Why Not Productions lead produces.
Contact: Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas
Killers Of The Flower Moon (US)
Dir. Martin Scorsese
A 1976 Palme d’Or winner for Taxi Driver, Scorsese brings a crime drama set on a Native American reservation, based on David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI. On top of the anticipation surrounding the 206-minute film is its place in Apple’s 2023 theatrical distribution strategy, which Screen International understands will see a 45-day exclusive theatrical release in North America via Paramount in October. Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons and Robert De Niro star.
Contact: Apple TV+ (streaming); Paramount Pictures (theatrical)
Profiles by Nikki Baughan, Ellie Calnan, Dani Clarke, Ben Dalton, Charles Gant, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Wendy Mitchell, Jean Noh, Jonathan Romney, Michael Rosser, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
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