2021 Cannes Film Festival Lineup: Big auteurs, expanded lineups and a record number of women filmmakers

Erik Anderson June 3, 2021

24 titles were revealed this morning as in competition films for the 74th Cannes Film Festival, announced today by Thierry Frémaux, artistic director and general delegate, and festival president Pierre Lescure. This year’s festival will be held July 6-17.

Among those 24 are Cannes returnees including including Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch), Leos Carax (Annette), Paul Verhoeven (Benedetta), Sean Penn (Flag Day), Sean Baker (Red Rocket), Asghar Farhadi (A Hero), and past Palme d’Or winners Jacques Audiard (Les Olympiades) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria). Fremaux had previously teased that a major premiere, a “planetary blockbuster,” would screen on the beach and as the closing-night film but did not reveal it today. Traditionally, films are added to to the competition lineup after the first announcement.

The number of competition titles directed by women this year ties 2019’s record number of four. Ildikó Enyedi, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear with Body and Soul, brings The Story of My Wife, starring Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel. Mia Hansen-Løve has Bergman Island, a melodrama with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps, about a couple of American filmmakers who travel to the Swedish island of Faro to write their respective films. Julia Ducournau makes her competition with the horror drama Titane, with Vincent Lindon as a father whose son resurfaces at an airport after having disappeared for 10 years. And Catherine Corsini marks a two-decades long return for another shot at the Palme d’Or (after 2001’s La Repetition) with French social drama La fracture.

After canceling last year’s festival due to the coronavirus outbreak, organizers planned on making a dramatic return, with the world famous red carpet stairs in tact, glamorous stars and high profile filmmakers. With France’s reopening occurs expected soon, “You will be able to fill the room 100%,” Frémaux explained, with safety precautions still in effect. Beginning July 1, the cap on audience capacity in all cultural venues will be removed. A mask, however, will be mandatory inside auditoriums, though it may not be on the red carpet by early July.

“Cinema is not dead,” said Frémaux, “and the return of audiences to movie theaters around the world was the first good news. And the festival will be the second good news.” During an extensive presentation of the official selection, Fremaux said the lineup was “very international” and includes several films that will reflect the times, for instance “lockdown films” in which “characters are wearing masks”; movies shot with cell phones; films or documentaries about whistleblowers; and many “films questioning who we are and what this world is becoming.”

To that effect, Frémaux added a new section this year called Cannes Premiere, designed to give returning Cannes favorites and auteurs a place to screen new work outside of the competition at the Debussy theater. He described this new segment of the program as “films that could have been a part of the official competition,” adding, “We didn’t want them to screen anywhere else.” Among those films include Andrea Arnold’s Cow, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Jane by Charlotte, Kornél Mundruczo’s Evolution and Hong Sang-soo’s In Front of Your Face.

The lineups for Critics’ Week and Directors Fortnight will be announced on June 7 and 8, respectively. Here is the lineup of the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

COMPETITION

“Ahed’s Knee” OR “Ha’berech,” Nadav Lapid
“Annette,” Leos Carax — OPENING FILM
“Benedetta,” Paul Verhoeven
“Bergman Island,” Mia Hansen-Løve
“Casablanca Beats,” Nabil Ayouch
“Compartment No. 6” OR “Hytti Nro 6,” Juho Kuosmanen
“Drive My Car,” Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
“Everything Went Fine” OR “Tout s’est bien passé,” Francois Ozon
“Flag Day,” Sean Penn
“France,” Bruno Dumont
“The French Dispatch,” Wes Anderson
“A Hero,” Asghar Farhadi
“La fracture,” Catherine Corsini
“Lingui,” Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
“Memoria,” Apichatpong Weerasethakul
“Nitram,” Justin Kurzel
“Paris, 13th District” OR “Les Olympiades,” Jacques Audiard
“Petrov’s Flu,” Kirill Serebrennikov
“Red Rocket,” Sean Baker
“The Restless” OR “Les Intranquilles,” Joachim Lafosse
“The Story of My Wife,” Ildikó Enyedi
“Three Floors” OR “Tre Piani,” Nanni Moretti
“Titane,” Julia Ducournau
“The Worst Person in the World” OR “Julie (en 12 Chapitres),” Joachim Trier

UN CERTAIN REGARD

“After Yang,” Kogonada
“Blue Bayou,” Justin Chon
“Bonne Mère,” Hafsia Herzi
“Commitment Hasan,” Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu
“Freda,” Gessica Généus
“Gaey Wa’r,” Na Jiazuo
“Great Freedom,” Sebastian Meise
“House Arrest” OR “Delo,” Alexey German Jr.
“The Innocents,” Eskil Vogt
“La Civil,” Teodora Ana Mihai
“Lamb,” Valdimar Jóhansson
“Let There Be Morning,” Eran Kolirin
“Moneyboys,“ B.C Yi
“Noche de Fuego,” Tatiana Huezo
“Rehana Maryam Noor,” Abdullah Mohammad Saad
“Unclenching the Fists,” Kira Kovalenko
“Un Monde,” Laura Wandel
“Women Do Cry,” Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova

OUT OF COMPETITION

“Aline, the Voice of Love,” Valerie Lemercier
“Bac Nord,” Cédric Jimenez
“Emergency Declaration,” Han Jae-Rim
“In His Lifetime” OR “De son vivant,” Emmanuelle Bercot
“Stillwater,” Tom McCarthy

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

“Bloody Oranges,” Jean-Christophe Meurisse
“The Velvet Underground,” Todd Haynes

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

“Babi Yar. Context,” Sergei Loznitsa
“Black Notebooks,” Shlomi Elkabetz
“H6,” Yé Yé
“JFK: Through the Looking Glass,” Oliver Stone
“Mariner of the mountains” OR “O Marinheiro das Montanhas,” Karim Aïnouz
“The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” Jafar Panahi, Anthony Chen, Malik Vitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery and Apichatpong Weerasethakul

CANNES PREMIERES

“Cow,” Andrea Arnold
“Deception” OR “Tromperie,” Arnaud Desplechin
“Evolution,” Kornél Mundruczo
“Hold Me Tight,” Mathieu Almaric
“In Front of Your Face,” Hong Sang-soo
“Jane by Charlotte,” Charlotte Gainsbourg
“JFK Revisted: Through the Looking Glass,” Oliver Stone
“Mothering Sunday,” Eva Husson
“This Music Is Playing for No One,” Samuel Benchetrit
“Val,” Ting Poo and Leo Scott

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.