AFTER its fallow year, Cannes is back. The world’s most prestigious film festival was forced to cancel last year’s edition due to the pandemic, and even now has shifted from its usual May berth to July. There are health protocol rules aplenty – the festival even has its own testing centre and the area outside the Palais des Festival where fans gather to watch the red carpet parades will be kept largely clear. But as much as it can, Cannes’ celebration of cinema is taking place. Never mind the new normal; this is very much the Cannes of old.
As the festival’s artistic director Thierry Frémaux said, defiantly, during the traditional press conference unveiling of titles, “Cinema is not dead. The return of audiences to movie theatres around the world was the first good news. And the festival will be the second good news.” With 24 films in official competition, plus a multitude of other titles in the sidebar strands and Spike Lee heading the jury, it’s a bumper 74th edition. Here are ten of the most anticipated films to hit the Croisette this year.
Annette (Competition)
What a way to start. The festival’s opening film is an operatic musical conceived by art-rock duo Ron and Russell Mael – better known as Sparks. The director is the French iconoclast Leos Carax, who last tickled festival-goers with his 2012 oddity Holy Motors starring Kylie Minogue. Annette casts Adam Driver as a stand-up comedian and Marion Cotillard as his wife, a world-famous soprano, two artists whose lives change when their daughter is born. British director Edgar Wright, who has recently directed his own Sparks documentary, has already seen the film, calling it “wildly ambitious, funny, poignant, tragic & formally bonkers”.
The Velvet Underground (Out of Competition)
American auteur Todd Haynes is frequently driven by music of the 1960s and ’70s. His Glam rock film Velvet Goldmine starred Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as musicians inspired by Iggy Pop and David Bowie, while I’m Not There starred a roster of A-List talent as various ‘aspects’ of Bob Dylan. Now, with the first documentary of his career, he’s turning his attention to the seminal band fronted by Lou Reed. Due to appear on Apple TV+ later in the year, this archive-footage led doc is set to be one of the hottest tickets at the festival.
Titane (Competition)
This one has cult hit written all over it. French director Julie Ducournau launched her career with 2016’s Raw, in which a young woman developed a craving for human flesh. This is no less out there, as former Cannes Best Actor winner Vincent Lindon plays a father who is reunited with his son who disappeared ten years earlier. The title refers to a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, often used in medical prostheses. If that isn’t weird enough, the first trailer and images evoke David Cronenberg in his prime.
Bergman Island (Competition)
This is another film that feels like it’s been hovering in the wings for aeons. Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden) started production on this drama about an American filmmaker couple (Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth) back in 2018. The story sees the pair head to the Swedish island of Fårö, famed for inspiring iconic filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, with the intention of settling down to write their new screenplays. The plot synopsis says they “find the lines between reality and fiction start to blur”, which doesn’t exactly reveal too much. Hansen-Løve, however, is a hugely exciting talent and this is her highest profile film to date.
Flag Day (Competition)
Sean Penn’s Cannes experiences as director have ranged from the sublime (2001’s The Pledge, featuring one of Jack Nicholson’s great late-career turns) to the truly ridiculous (The Last Face, which was roundly booed when it played in 2016). So what to expect from Flag Day? Penn plays John Vogel, a father who lives a double life as a con man, bank robber and counterfeiter, all to provide for his daughter. Keeping it in the family, Penn’s daughter Dylan, in her first lead, plays Vogel’s offspring, Jennifer. Original songs by Cat Power, Glen Hansard and Eddie Vedder will also feature.
The Souvenir Part II (Director’s Fortnight)
While British directors may not be playing in competition, there is still an exciting homegrown presence in Cannes. Joanna Hogg returns with The Souvenir Part II, a sequel to her celebrated 2019 auto-fiction. Swinton Byrne, daughter to Tilda Swinton, returns as Julie, the impressionable film student living in 1980s London. After her relationship with an older man came to a tragic end, she now explores the aftermath of her emotions through her graduate film. The rising British star Harris Dickinson, who appeared in Danny Boyle’s Getty family drama Trust, also stars.
Ali & Ava (Director’s Fortnight)
Another British female director, Clio Barnard also plays in Director’s Fortnight, a strand that has previously unveiled everything from The Virgin Suicides to The Lighthouse. This interracial love story stars Adeel Akhtar (who can currently be seen in Netflix hit Sweet Tooth) and Claire Rushbrook as two lonely souls that find solace with one another. Bernard took inspiration from people she met making her earlier works The Arbor and The Selfish Giant in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Quiet sensitivity is assured.
The French Dispatch (Competition)
Wes Anderson has Cannes form – 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom opened the festival. And this Gallic ensemble comedy centring on an American literary magazine was also due to be 2020’s curtain-raiser until the festival was torpedoed by the pandemic. Thankfully, its been held over for this year. With a red carpet-ready roster of stars (Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand), its undoubtedly the most starry movie in competition. Said to be “a love letter to journalists” of a bygone era and, specifically, The New Yorker magazine, it might just be the film that makes everyone smile the most.
Tre Piani (Three Floors)
Part of the Cannes furniture, Italian veteran director Nanni Moretti has seen seven past films play at the festival, and 2001’s family drama The Son’s Room took the top prize. This latest is the first time he’s adapted an outside source – Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo’s novel, telling of three families living in apartments in the same bourgeois condominium. Shifting the action from Tel Aviv to Rome, Mortetti and fellow Italians Alba Rohrwacher and Riccardo Scamarcio star in what is likely to be an engrossing and assured work.
Benedetta (Competition)
The last time director Paul Verhoeven was in Cannes, he brought with him the career-rejuvenating Elle, which ultimately gleaned star Isabelle Huppert an Oscar. He’s now back with Benedetta, a film that has already been pushed back twice. It was due in Cannes 2019 before Verhoeven – who turns 83 the day after this year’s festival closes – needed a hip operation. When the 2020 edition was cancelled, the producers took the decision to wait. So expectations are high for this erotic love story between two 17th Century nuns – starring Virginie Efira. Coming from the director of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, the mind boggles, but late-era Verhoeven is every bit as interesting as those Dutch delights like Spetters and Soldier of Orange that launched his career.
The Cannes Film Festival runs from July 6th-17th.
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