When you look at last year’s Competition lineup, which contained Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, Joachim Trier’s inter
When you look at last year’s Competition lineup, which contained Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, Joachim Trier’s international feature Oscar winner Sentimental Value, Kleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent and Oliver Laxe’s Sirât among other gems, there might be a sense heading into the festival’s 79th edition of, ‘How can Cannes possibly surpass itself this year?’
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But as the venerable event proves again, it is the destination of choice for nearly every international auteur filmmaker of significance. The US studios might increasingly stay away, fearful of the type of response that can undermine carefully planned global rollouts, and China’s substantial names aren’t necessarily queuing up for a spot, but for the rest of the world, Cannes is the place to be.
This year’s Competition lineup is once again brimming with auteur names ready to unleash their latest works into the world. Included among them are three Japanese directors — fitting, as the Marché’s country of honour — Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Koji Fukada and Hirokazu Kore-eda, a prior winner of the Palme d’Or, alongside Asghar Farhadi, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pedro Almodovar, Pawel Pawlikowski and Cristian Mungiu, also a past winner of Cannes’ top prize.
It’s a Competition yet again dominated by male directors — five women were selected for the 22-strong lineup — but the presence of Marie Kreutzer and Valeska Grisebach is extremely welcome, as are younger voices like Lukas Dhont and Spanish duo Los Javis, making a Competition debut with only their second feature.
The entirety of this year’s official selection and parallel strands will as always be rife with discoveries, as Screen International outlines in our annual detailed guide, and the team looks forward to covering this year’s festival with the same passion that Cannes’ selection committees bring to their roles curating the best that arthouse cinema has to offer.
Cannes 79 will be another festival of discovery across all sections, and we can’t wait to find out what’s in store.
The Cannes Film Festival runs May 12-23.
Click on the links to each section for the profiles.
Competition
Out of Competition
Un Certain Regard
Midnight Screenings
Cannes Premiere
Special Screenings
Directors’ Fortnight
Critics’ Week
Profiles by: Elisabet Cabeza, Ben Dalton, Charles Gant, John Hazelton, Rebecca Leffler, Jonathan Romney, Michael Rosser, Matt Schley, Anna Stafford, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
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