Cannes Film Festival general delegate Thierry Fremaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled the official line-up for the event’s 78th edition featuring a signature blend of auteur and red- carpet glamour during the event’s annual press conference in Paris today (April 10).
Knobloch, now in her third year as president, kicked off the anticipated unveiling by referencing the festival’s long history since its creation in 1939 with “the will to offer to films and filmmakers a refuge – sometimes in the literal sense.” She said the festival remains “daring, curious and open”.
Addressing a professional audience at the UGC Montparnasse in Paris’ 6th arrondissement, Fremaux said the festival had received a record 2,909 feature films from 156 countries – 68% were films from male filmmakers and 32% from women while 1,127 were debut features.
In 2024, Cannes festival titles earned 31 Oscar nominations, whileThe Count Of Monte-Cristo and Beating Hearts topped the French box office.
“As we say at the Cannes film festival, we fly them to the moon…then back to earth so they can light up cinemas,” said Knobloch.
Knobloch cited the large-scale international resonance of the festival that saw 39,000 professionals head to the Croisette for the 2024 event and 15,000 from 140 countries at the market “who came together to exchange and realise projects”.
As previously announced, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning will world premiere out of competition. It will be joined by titles including Rebecca Zlotowski’s Vie Privée starring Jodie Foster in a French-language role alongside Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Amalric and Virginie Efira and Thierry Klifa’s The Richest Woman In The World starring Isabelle Huppert as a fictionalised version of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt.
Juliette Binoche and her jury will preside over a Competition line-up of films by acclaimed auteur filmmakers including Tarik Saleh’s Eagles Of The Republic, Dominik Moll’s police thriller Case 137, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, Ari Aster’s Eddington, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, the Dardenne brothers’ Young Mothers and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague from ARP Sélection, about the making of Breathless that Fremaux called “very, very exciting”.
“We are like editors – we are loyal to our auteurs,” Fremaux said at the conference referencing the Dardenne brothers and Anderson.
Female directors are represented in Competition by Kelly Reichardt withThe Mastermind, Hafsia Herzi with The Little Sister, Julia Ducournau with Alpha and Chie Hayakawa with Renoir, among others.
Amélie Bonin’s musical comedy drama Partir Un Jour will open the festival. “It’s the first time in history a first film will open the Cannes Film Festival,” Fremaux said.
Knobloch added: “Women are finally being heard. The festival is particularly attentive to this. They don’t ask for their place – they assume it.”
She cited Juliette Binoche presiding over the jury one year after Greta Gerwig: “[It is] the first time from one woman to another in 60 years, a passing of the torch between two icons and two women who inspire us.”
Scarlett Johansson will be in town to unveil her directorial debut Eleanor The Great in Un Certain Regard.
Explaining that “the promise of the Cannes Film Festival is to accompany major evolutions in society,” Knobloch confirmed “the festival has taken into account the recommendations of the committee for sexual assault in the film industry,” referencing the report published the day before (April 9) from a national assembly commission presided by Sandrine Rousseau.
The line-up is still evolving. “We’re still at work,” Fremaux said of the selection that he says “will be complete on May 13th when it begins”.
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