2024-04-11 10:15:33
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ will premiere out of competition in Cannes.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump Drama The Apprentice, Anorathe latest from The Florida Project and Red Rocket director Sean Baker, and Andrea Arnold’s Bird, starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, are among the highlights of this year’s Cannes competition.
Abbasi, the Iranian-born, Swedish-based director, whose Holy Spider was a sensation of the 2022 Cannes festival, returns with his story of how a young Donald Trump and the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn built up Trump’s real estate business in New York in the 1970s and 80s. Sebastian Stan stars as Trump, with Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) as wife Ivanka.
Also in the unmissable category is competition entry Emilia Pereza crime musical from Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard (Deepan, Rust and Bone) starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez.
Canadian directing legend David Cronenberg, who presented Crimes of the Future in Cannes in 2022, is back in competition with The Shroudsa horror thriller starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce.
Another Cannes veteran, Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke (Ash is the Purest White, A Touch of Sin) returns with the competition entry Caught By The Tides. As does exiled Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov (Tchaikovsky’s Wife, Petrov’s Flu, Leto) who will premiere his Ben Whishaw-starrer Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie in Cannes, marking the fourth competition entry.
In the nepo baby category, Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio scored a competition slot. The drama stars Chiara Mastroianni playing alongside her mother Catherine Deneuve and off the ghost of her father, Italian acting legend Marcello Mastroianni.
Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenopethe Italian director’s 10th feature, will premiere on the Croisette, a bit of a coup for Cannes, since Sorrentino tends to favor Venice as a festival launch pad. The feature follows a woman with the same name of the mythological siren the city of Naples is supposedly named after. Gary Oldman plays a supporting role in the Italian feature.
Cannes festival president Iris Knobloch and artistic director Thierry Frémaux presented the official selection for the 77th Cannes Film Festival at a press conference in Paris on Thursday. The lineup includes the official competition and out-of-competition titles, the films in the main festival sidebar Un Certain Regard as well as special and midnight screenings.
The Surferan Australian-set Nicolas Cage thriller from Vivarium director Lorcan Finnegan, will premiere in Cannes’ Midnight Screening line-up, joined by Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong action film Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In; I, The Executioner from Korean director Seung Wan Ryoo; and The Balconettes from French director Noémie Merlant.
Highlights of the Un Certain Regard section include Black Dog from Chinese director Guan Hu; Konstantin Bojanov’s crime drama The Shameless; the Saudi drama Norah from director Tawfik Alzaidi; and September Saysthe directorial debut of French actress Ariane Labed (Assassin’s Creed).
Rumorsa political comedy from acclaimed Canadian director Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson featuring Alicia Vikander, Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance will premiere out of competition in Cannes. As will Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s She’s Got No Name.
Yolande Zauberman’s documentary The beauty of Gazaabout a transexual Palestinian who goes to Tel Aviv to live in their new identity, will receive a special screening in Cannes. Though made before the ongoing war in the region, Frémaux said it will receive “a new echo” given current events.
Other political documentaries in the special screening section include L’Invasion from Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa (Donbass, My Joy) about the 2022 Russian invasion of his country, and Ernest Cole, Lost and Founda portrait of the acclaimed South African photographer from director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) narrated by Judas and the Black Messiah star LaKeith Stanfield.
The French festival is coming off a strong year after 2023 competition titles Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest went from the Croisette to Oscar success. Justine Triet’s courtroom drama picked up both the Palme d’Or in Cannes and the Oscar for best original screenplay, while Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust story took the runner-up grand prize in Cannes and two Academy Awards: best international feature and best sound. Knobloch, noting that 2023 festival entries racked up a total of 26 Oscar nominations, said Cannes “confirmed” its status as the place to “find the best films.”
Cannes’ 2024 edition kicks off May 14 with the out-of-competition world premiere of the French comedy The Second Actdirected by Quentin Dupieux and starring Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon.
Among the Hollywood highlights on the Croisette this year are George Miller’s hotly-anticipated Max Max: Fury Road prequel Angrystarring Anya Taylor-Joy, and Kevin Costner‘s Horizon: An American Sagathe first of his two-part Western epic. Both Warner Bros. titles are screening out of competition in Cannes and are using the high-profile festival bow to kick-start their global roll-outs. Warner Bros. is releasing Angry in France on May 22 and on the U.S. on May 24. The first of the Horizon films bows stateside on June 28. The second drops two months later, on Aug. 16.
It was announced Tuesday that Francis Ford Coppola‘s highly anticipated, self-funded feature Megalopolis would screen in competition on May 17. The film starring Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza recently screened for potential buyers.
Directing and producing legend George Lucas will be feted at this year’s Cannes, receiving an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work. The Star Wars helmer screened his directorial debut, THX-1138in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar back in 1971. His last film as a director: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sithalso premiered at the festival, screening out of competition in 2005.
In a new addition this year, the Cannes Festival announced it will launch a competitive immersive section featuring works of virtual and augmented reality that “push the boundaries of storytelling.”
An international jury, headed by Barbie director Greta Gerwig will pick the winners, including this year’s Palme d’Or, from the competition titles. Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan will head up the Un Certain Regard jury.
The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival runs May 14-25.
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