Directors’ Fortnight will open its 57th edition with Enzo, written and developed by overdue Cannes d’Or winner Laurent Cantet before his death last
Directors’ Fortnight will open its 57th edition with Enzo, written and developed by overdue Cannes d’Or winner Laurent Cantet before his death last April and directed by friend and collaborator Robin Campillo.
The film is among 18 features announced for the 2025 line-up of the Cannes parallel section – overseen by the French Directors Guild (Société des Réalisateurs de Films) – at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday.
Big screen debutant Eloy Pohu stars as the 16-year-old protagonist Enzo who defies his bourgeois family’s expectations by starting a masonry apprenticeship, which brings him into contact with charismatic Ukrainian workmate Vlad (Maksym Slivinskyi). Elodie Bouchez and Pierfrancesco Favino also feature in the cast.
“It’s a magnificent tale of adolescence focused on the character of an elusive young man,” said Directors’ Fortnight Artistic Director Julien Rejl. “It’s a film that moved us deeply, and I felt there was no other place for it than to present it as the opening of this fortnight.”
Cantet, who won the Palme d’Or for The Class in 2008, had been due to shoot the film last August. Campillo, who made waves in Cannes with 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute), picked up the directorial baton following the death of his friend, who he first met when they were film school students in the 1980s. It is produced by Anatomy of a Fall producer Marie-Ange Luciani under the banner of Les Films de Pierre.
It is the second consecutive year Directors’ Fortnight has opened with a posthumous film, after Sophie Fillières’ final feature This Life of Mine, starring Agnès Jaoui as a woman whose sense of self starts to unravel as she turns 55, kicked off the section in 2024.
The section will close with Eva Victor’s drama Sorry, Baby, about an academic dealing with a traumatic event, which premiered in Sundance earlier this year and sparked a bidding war, won by A24.
“It’s a stunning, masterfully executed debut film in which, after a rather tragic event, a young woman rebuilds her life and rediscovers her path and zest for life,” said Rejl.
“We also wanted to end this edition with this powerful film, as it powerfully engages with some very contemporary debates.”
Rejl revealed the section received 1 605 feature-length films and 2,534 low and medium-length films this year.
“It’s been particularly ‘sporty’ with half the films arriving after March 15, which meant the selection process was extremely intense these last three weeks, with screenings going on up until yesterday. The selection you’re about to hear is extremely fresh,” he said.
Also from the U.S., is Lloyd Lee Choi’s first feature Lucky Lu. Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (Happy Together) stars as a Chinese delivery driver in New York whose e-bike, and main means of making a living, is stolen just as his family are due to join him in the U.S. after many years apart.
Out of Canada, French Canadian director Anne Émond’s Peak Everything about a kennel owner who falls for a customer service representative and decides to track her down.
Miroirs No. 3
© Schramm Film
Eight of the selected features are first films but established directors have also made the cut including German director Christian Petzold with Miroirs No. 3 about a piano student from Berlin, who miraculously survives a car crash during a weekend trip to the countryside and is then taken in by a local family.
“It’s his fourth collaboration with Paula Beer,” said Rejl. “It’s a kind of melodrama, very mysterious, but with the same great direction, precision and elegance that makes the charm of Christian Petzold’s cinema.”
Continuing the section’s tradition of showcasing genre, the line-up also includes Australian director Sean Byrne’s IFC and Shudder-acquired thriller Dangerous Animals starring Hassie Harrison as a free-spirited surfer who is abducted by shark-obsessed serial killer and held on his boat.
The section will also debut animated feature Death Does Not Exist by French director Félix Dufour-Laperrière. It follows youthful political activist Helen who abandons her accomplices after a failed armed attack to overthrow figures of the establishment in their sumptuous villa, and then meditates on her intimate and political choices as she hides out in the surrounding forest.
Documentary also features in the line-up with Ukrainian directors Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi’s hard-hitting work Militantropos, investigating the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on personal behavior as people adjust to life of combat and resistance.
As ever, there is a powerful French presence with Antony Cordier’s class-war comedy and fourth feature The Party’s Over, featuring an ensemble cast led by Laurent Lafitte, Elodie Bouchez and Laure Calamy; Louise Hémon’s alpine-set psychological thriller The Girl in the Snow; Thomas Ngijol’s Cameroon-set detective thriller Indomptables, and Prïncia Car’s female-driven drama The Girls We Want, featuring an amateur cast and shot in Marseille.
Indomptables marks a change in style for Paris-born French-Cameroonian actor and director N’Gijol, who is best known in France for his comedy work.
Taking inspiration from Mosco Levi Bouko’s 1998 documentary Un crime à Abidjan about an Ivory Coast police commissioner, N’Gijol has transposed the story to Cameroon to create a detective tale set in the capital of Yaoundé, in which he plays the main role.
“It’s a portrait, as we’ve never seen before, of Cameroonian society, of police violence, of family relationships, and a certain image of patriarchy,” said Rejl.
Other films from territories seen more rarely on the substantial screen include Iraqi director Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake set in Iraq’s little filmed marshes area against the backdrop of President Saddam Hussein rule in the 1990s. At a time when the population is suffering from food shortages, a youthful girl finds herself obliged to make a birthday cake for her school mates to celebrate the president’s birthday.
Asia presence
Asian cinema is well-represented with Chinese director Jinghao Zhou’s Girl On Edge, Korean-Japanese director Lee Sang-il’s epic drama Kokuho and Japanese newcomer Yuiga Danzuka’s first film Brand New Landscape.
On the Edge is a psychological thriller taking its cue from female rivalry within the world of competitive figure skating.
“For a first film it’s incredibly masterful for a first feature film and also stands out from the Chinese cinema that we are used to seeing in major festivals,” said Rejl.
Opening in post-World War Two Japan, when the country was experiencing rapid economic growth, Kokuho follows a man born into a yakuza family and then taken in by a Kabuki theater actor. It features a high-profile cast led by Ryo Yoshizawa.
Noting that Lee Sang-il previously directed a Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, Rejl described Kokuho as an “immense fresco unfolding over close to three hours and taking place across half a century in the universe of Kabuki.”
Rejl described Yuiga Danzuka’s Tokyo-set drama Brand New Landscape as a “little miracle from Japan” revolving around a sibling reunion years after the death of their mother.
“The finesse with which it depicts family and filial relationships recalls the beauty and emotional richness of Ozu’s cinema,” he said, referring to overdue iconic Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.
In other previously announced news related to this year’s edition of Directors’ Fortnight, U.S. director Todd Haynes will receive the honorary Carrosse d’Or (Golden Carriage).
The 57th edition runs from May 14 to 22.
Feature Selection * denotes first film
Enzo – OPENING FILM
Dirs. Laurent Cantet & Robin Campillo
Peak Everything
Dir. Anne Émond
Brand New Landscape *
Dir. Yuiga Danzuka
The Party’s Over
Dir. Antony Cordier
Dangerous Animals
Dir. Sean Byrne
Wild Foxes *
Dir. Valéry Carnoy
The Girl in the Snow *
Dir. Louise Hémon
The Girls We Want *
Dir. Prïncia Car
Girl on Edge *
Dir. Jinghao Zhou
Indomptables
Dir. Thomas Ngijol
Kokuho
Dir. Lee Sang-il
Lucky Lu *
Dir. Lloyd Lee Choi
Militantropos
Dir. Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova & Simon Mozgovyi
Miroirs No. 3
Dir. Christian Petzold
Death Does Not Exist (La Mort N’Existe Pas)
Dir. Félix Dufour-Laperrière
The President’s Cake *
Dir. Hasan Hadi
Que Ma Volonté Soit Faite
Dir. Julia Kowalski
Sorry, Baby * – CLOSING FILM
Dir. Eva Victor
Short and Medium Length Films
+10K
Dir. Gala Hernández López
Before The Sea Forgets
Dir. Ngọc Duy Lê
The Body
Dir. Louris van de Geer
Bread Will Walk
Dir. Alex Boya
Blue Heart
Dir. Samuel Suffren
Karmash
Dir. Aleem Bukhari
Loynes
Dir. Dorian Jespers
Death of the Fish
Dir. Eva Lusbaronian
Nervous Energy
Dir. Eve Liu
When The Geese Flew
Dir. Arthur Gay
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