This year’s Cannes Film Festival will pit stalwarts of arthouse cinema such as Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski and Spain’s Pedro Almodovar against a small pool of newer voices as 21 titles compete for the gathering’s prestigious main prize next month.
The Cannes Film Festival brings together the film industry’s biggest names in the sun-soaked south of France each May to strike deals, pledge their love for cinema and party on yachts.
For directors, winning the festival’s Palme d’Or opens the door to bigger budgets, opportunities and seals their reputation as leading filmmakers.
In announcing this year’s line-up yesterday, festival director Thierry Fremaux noted the absence of big studio films as weak box office revenues force Hollywood to avoid taking risks and to scale back production.
“In the US, it’s a moment of transition. When you have such a transition, they don’t have the projects to produce a lot of films, but I’m sure that it will come back, and we will be there waiting.”
Two previous Palme winners return to competition, with Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda exploring childhood and artificial intelligence in Sheep in the Box, while Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord stars Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve, fresh from her success in Oscar winner Sentimental Value.
Also back in the running are Pawlikowski with Fatherland, a portrait of German novelist Thomas Mann, and Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemes, whose new film focuses on French Resistance figure Jean Moulin.
Other competition veterans include Almodovar, with tragicomedy Bitter Christmas, as well as Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi and France’s Arthur Harari.
Entries featuring big-name actors include US director Ira Sachs’ 1980s’ AIDS drama The Man I Love, which stars Rami Malek from Bohemian Rhapsody, while Javier Bardem leads The Beloved from Spain’s Rodrigo Sorogoyen.
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