The official selection of the 77th Cannes Film Festival was revealed today, including the much buzzed about Francis Ford Coppola feature Megalopolis, his $120 million self-funded period film starring Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Giancarlo Esposito as well as Oscar winners Forest Whitaker and Dustin Hoffman, that is seeking distribution. Coppola himself screened the film last week for a select group of people – friends, family and hopeful buyers – and inadvertently revealed that the film, his first in 10 years, would be among the lineup announcement today. The lineup was unveiled by Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Fremaux and president Iris Knobloch on Thursday at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris.
Coppola, 85, has won the Palme d’Or twice: in 1974 for The Conversation, and, in 1979, for Apocalypse Now (shared with Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum), his last appearance at the festival. But the film’s appearance could ignite a bit of controversy as it enters the competition without a distributor and the general rule for Cannes competition films is that they have to have secured a French theatrical release in order to qualify. This began in 2017 when Netflix brought Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories to the Croisette. Netflix doesn’t release its films in French theaters due to the local windowing rules that require the service to wait 15 months after a theatrical rollout to make a film available to its subscribers. They haven’t made a Cannes appearance since. Last year, Todd Haynes brought his new film May December to Cannes without distribution (a first for him and producer Christine Vachon) and the film was scooped up by Netflix post-festival.
Hot off the four Oscar wins for Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos is right back in the action – and with star Emma Stone – with Kinds of Kindness, a triptych of stories that also stars Academy Award nominees Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau and Jesse Plemons as well as Hunter Schafer, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie and will be released by Searchlight Pictures in the U.S. in June.
Other high profile films and filmmakers in competition include Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada with Richard Gere, based on a screenplay by the late Russell Banks (Affliction); Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama Emilia Perez starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; in his 7th appearance in competition, Paolo Sorrentino brings Parthenope with Oscar winner Gary Oldman; and also making his 7th appearance in comp is David Cronenberg with The Shrouds starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. Among the few female filmmakers in competition is Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a female-driven horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley from Universal Pictures and Working Title Films. American Honey director Andrea Arnold returns to competition with Bird, starring Academy Award nominee Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski.
Last year, the festival set a record in terms of representation for women filmmakers, inviting seven female directors to Official Competition. The Palme d’Or was awarded to Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall, only the third time a woman has won the festival’s top honor. Triet would go on to earn Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director and win the Academy Award for Original Screenplay. This year, the number of women in competition stands at just four.
This year also features once again an overwhelming slate of American and European films, with more than half entirely in English. Only one film from Latin America (Grand Tour from Miguel Gomes) and one from East Asia (Caught by the Tides from Jia Zhang-Ke) while no films from Africa or the Middle East have representation in the current competition lineup.
Iris Knobloch, President and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, who announced the lineup, revealed that between Anatomy and Grand Prize winner The Zone of Interest, that last year would be a tough act to follow. “This selection was not particularly easy to make,” Fremaux said. “As Iris just said it, last year was very successful but we didn’t know it would be last year when we were sitting here.” Fremaux suggested more titles might be added to the competition, as is often the case. “We may add, because right now we’re not at the usual number of 21 of 22 films in competition,” he said. “It’s in the reflections that we will be having in the days to come.” It was also revealed that the festival will expand beyond the Palais des Festivals and into the Palm Beach, a venue located on the opposite side of the Croisette that is currently being remodeled. Knobloch also said the Cannes Film Market has already lured more than 14,000 accredited professionals from 120 countries.
Sure to attract a lot of attention on the Croisette will be Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in a biopic detailing his rise as real estate businessman in the 1970s and ’80s.
The French Riviera festival runs May 15-25 and will kick off with the world premiere of Quentin Dupieux’s comedy Second Act starring Lea Seydoux and Vincent Lindon. Academy Award nominated writer/director/actress Greta Gerwig will preside over the competition jury and multiple Cannes winner Xavier Dolan will head up jury for Un Certain Regard.
As previously announced, George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will world premiere out of competition as is Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Part One. Both will see summer 2024 releases in the U.S. Legendary director George Lucas will receive this year’s Honorary Palme and French star Camille Cottin will serve as Master of Ceremonies.
See the full lineup of the 77th Cannes Film Festival below.
OPENER
Second Act, Quentin Dupieux
COMPETITION
All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia
Anora, Sean Baker
Bird, Andrea Arnold
Caught by the Tides (Feng Liu Yi Dai), Jia Zhang-Ke
Emilia Perez, Jacques Audiard
Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes
Kinds of Kindness, Yorgos Lanthimos
L’Amour Ouf, Gilles Lellouche
Limonov: The Ballad, Kirill Serebrennikov
Marcello Mio, Christophe Honore
Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola
Motel Destino, Karim Ainouz
Oh Canada, Paul Schrader
Parthenope, Paolo Sorrentino
The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi
The Girl With the Needle, Magnus von Horn
The Shrouds, David Cronenberg
The Substance, Coralie Fargeat
Wild Diamond (Diamant Brut), Agathe Riedinger
The Most Precious of Cargoes, Michel Hazanavicius [ADDITION]
Trois kilomètres jusqu’à la fin du monde, Emanuel Parvu [ADDITION]
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof [ADDITION]
OUT OF COMPETITION
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller
Horizon: An American Saga – Part One, Kevin Costner
Rumours, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin
She’s Got No Name, Chan Peter Ho-Sun
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte [ADDITION]
CANNES PREMIERE
C’est Pas Moi, Leos Carax
En Fanfare (The Matching Bang), Emmanuel Courcol
Everybody Loves Touda, Nabil Ayouch
Le Roman de Jim, Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu
Misericorde, Alain Guiraudie
Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot, Rithy Panh
Vivre, Mourir, Renaitre, Gaël Morel [ADDITION]
Maria, Jessica Palud [ADDITION]
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
I, the Executioner, Seung Wan Ryoo
The Balconettes (Les Femmes au Balcon), Noemie Merlant
The Surfer, Lorcan Finnegan
Twilight of the Warrior Walled In, Soi Cheang
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Apprendre, Claire Simon
The Beauty of Gaza (La Belle de Gaza), Yolande Zauberman
Ernest Cole, Lost and Found, Raoul Peck
L’Invasion, Sergei Loznitsa
Le Fil, Daniel Auteuil
Spectateurs, Arnaud Desplechin [ADDITION]
Nasty, Tudor Giurgiu [ADDITION]
Lula, Oliver Stone [ADDITION]
An Unfinished Film, Lou Ye [ADDITION]
Armand, Halfdan Ullman Tondel
Black Dog (Gou Zhen), Guan Hu
The Damned (Les Damnes), Roberto Minervini
L’Histoire de Souleymane, Boris Lojkine
Le Royaume, Julien Colonna
My Sunshine (Boku No Ohisama), Hiroshi Okuyama
Norah, Tawfik Alzaidi
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Rungano Nyoni
Santosh, Sandhya Suri
September Says, Ariane Labed
The Shameless, Konstantin Bojanov
Viet and Nam, Truong Minh Quy
The Village Next to Paradise, Mo Harawe
Vingt Dieux!, Louise Courvoisier
Who Let the Dog Bite? (Le Proces du Chien), Laetitia Dosch
When the Light Breaks, Rúnar Rúnarsson [ADDITION]
Niki, Céline Sallette [ADDITION]
Flow, Gints Zilbalodis [ADDITION]
Competition
Baby, Marcelo Caetano
Blue Sun Palace, Constance Tsang
The Brink of Dreams, Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir
Julie Keeps Quiet, Leonardo Van Dijl
Locust, KEFF
Block Pass, Antoine Chevrollier
Simon of the Mountain, Federico Luis
Special Screenings
Ghost Trail, Jonathan Millet (Opening Film)
Queens of Drama, Alexis Langlois
Across the Sea, Saïd Hamich Benlarbi
Animale, Emma Benestan (Closing Film)
FEATURE FILMS
THIS LIFE OF MINE (Ma vie ma gueule) by Sophie Fillières (France) opening film
CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER’S POINT by Tyler Taormina (USA)
DESERT OF NAMIBIA (Namibia no sabaku) by Yôko Yamanaka (Japan)
EAST OF NOON(Sharq 12) by Hala Elkoussy (Egypt)
EAT THE NIGHT by Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel (France)
EEPHUS by Carson Lund (USA) – first feature film
GAZER by Ryan J. Sloan (USA) – first feature film
GHOST CAT ANZU (Bakeneko Anzu-chan / Anzu, chat-fantôme) by Yôko Kuno & Nobuhiro Yamashita (Japan)
GOOD ONE by India Donaldson (États-Unis) – first feature film
IN HIS OWN IMAGE (À son image) by Thierry de Peretti (France)
MONGREL (白衣蒼狗) by Chiang Wei Liang & You Qiao Yin (Taiwan) – first feature film
SAVANNA AND THE MOUNTAIN (A savana e a montanha) by Paulo Carneiro (Portugal)
SISTER MIDNIGHT by Karan Kandhari (India)
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING BORROWED (Algo viejo, algo nuevo, algo prestado) by Hernán Rosselli (Argentina)
THE FALLING SKY (A queda do céu / La Chute du ciel) by Eryk Rocha & Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha (Brazil)
THE HYPERBOREANS (Los hiperbóreos) by Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña (Chile)
THE OTHER WAY AROUND (Volveréis, Septembre sans attendre) by Jonás Trueba (Spain)
TO A LAND UNKNOWN by Mahdi Fleifel (Palestine, Denmark)
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Une langue universelle) by Matthew Rankin (Canada)
VISITING HOURS (La Prisonnière de Bordeaux) by Patricia Mazuy (France)
PLASTIC GUNS (Les Pistolets en plastique) by Jean-Christophe Meurisse (France) closing film
SPECIAL SCREENING
AMERICAN STORIES: FOOD, FAMILY AND PHILOSOPHY (Histoires d’Amérique : Food, Family and Philosophy) by Chantal Akerman (Belgium)
SHORT FILMS
AFTER THE SUN (Après le soleil) by Rayane Mcirdi (France, Algeria)
ANTOINE, ÉLISE AND LÉANDRE (Les Météos d’Antoine) by Jules Follet (France)
EXTREMELY SHORT (Totemo mijikai) by Kōji Yamamura (Japan)
IMMACULATA by Kim Lêa Sakkal (Lebanon)
MULBERRY FIELDS (Một lần dang dở) by Nguyễn Trung Nghĩa (Vietnam)
OUR OWN SHADOW (Nuestra sombra) by Agustina Sánchez Gavier (Argentina)
THE MOVING GARDEN (O jardim em movimento) by Inês Lima (Portugal)
VERY GENTLE WORK (Travail très soigné) by Nate Lavey (USA)
WHEN THE LAND RUNS AWAY (Quando a terra foge) by Frederico Lobo (Portugal)
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