The Cannes Film Festival rarely goes by without cacophony, but this year’s edition could be noisier and more disturbing than any in recent memory.
When the red carpet rolls out on Tuesday at the Palais des Festivals, the 77th Cannes Film Festival will take place against a backdrop of war, protests, potential strikes and the accelerating #MeToo uprising in France, which has largely resisted the movement for years .
Festival workers threaten to strike. The war between Israel and Hamas, hard felt in France, a country which is home to the largest Jewish and Arab communities in Europe, will not fail to trigger protests. Russia’s war in Ukraine remains on many people’s minds. Add to that the anxieties that can be expected at Cannes – the still uncertain future of cinema, the rise of artificial intelligence – and this year’s festival should have no shortage of drama.
Being prepared for anything has long been a useful attitude in Cannes. Befitting such tumultuous times, the film lineup is full of intrigue, curiosity and question marks.
The Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, just a few days before the presentation in competition in Cannes of his latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. The film remains on the Cannes program.
The most feverishly awaited entry is undoubtedly Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed opus “Megalopolis” Coppola, himself, is no stranger to high drama at Cannes. An unfinished cut of “Apocalypse Now” earned him (tied) his second Palme d’Or more than four decades ago.
Even the next US presidential election will not be far away. Premiering in competition, “The Apprentice” by Ali Abbasi, with Sebastian Stan in the role of young Donald Trump. There will also be new films from Kevin Costner, Paolo Sorrentino, Sean Baker, Yorgos Lanthimos and Andrea Arnold. And for a potential Cannes powder keg, there is also the incendiary bomb of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”. The film, an apocalyptic dystopia, returns director George Miller to the festival he became addicted to as a juror.
“I got hooked on it just because it’s like a movie camp,” says Miller, who was fascinated by the global cinema gathering at Cannes and the impeccable film presentations. “It really is optimal cinema. The moment they said, ‘OK, we’re happy to show this film here,’ I jumped on it.”
Officially opening Cannes on Tuesday will be “The Second Act,” a French comedy by Quentin Dupieux, starring Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon. During the opening ceremony, Meryl Streep will be presented with an honorary Palme d’Or. During the closing ceremony, George Lucas will also receive one.
But the spotlight at the start risks turning to Judith Godrèche. The French director and actor said earlier this year that filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager, allegations that shook French cinema. Jacquot and Doillon have denied these allegations.
Although much of the French film industry was previously reluctant to embrace the #MeToo movement, Godrèche sparked a broader response. She spoke passionately about the need for change at the César ceremony, the French equivalent of the Oscars, and before a French Senate committee.
During the same period, Godrèche also made the short film “Moi aussi” during a Parisian gathering of hundreds of people who wrote him their own stories of sexual abuse. On Wednesday, he opens the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes.
“I hope to be heard in the sense that I’m not interested in being some sort of representation of someone who just wants to pick on everyone in this industry,” Godrèche said before the festival. “I’m just fighting for some kind of change. It’s called a revolution.”
It’s the latest chapter in how #MeToo resonated at the world’s largest film gathering, following a protest by 82 women on the steps of the Palace in 2018 and a commitment to parity men-women in 2019. Cannes has often been criticized for not having invited more women. filmmakers in competition, but the festival gives its full support to Godrèche while anticipating the possibility of new #MeToo revelations during the festival.
“For me, having these faces, these people – everyone in this film – gives them this place to celebrate,” Godrèche said. “There’s this thing about this place that has so much history. In a way, it forever mystifies films. Once your film was in Cannes, it was in Cannes.”
Some of the filmmakers present at the festival this year are already firmly anchored in Cannes history. Paul Schrader was at the festival nearly 50 years ago for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which he wrote. After a notoriously controversial reaction, he won the Palme in 1976.
“It was a different place. It was a lot more collegial and low-key,” Schrader said during a break from packing. “I remember very clearly sitting on the terrace at the Carlton with Marty and Sergio Leone and (Rainer Werner) Fassbender came with his boyfriend and joined us. We were all talking and the sun was going down. I was thinking: ” It’s the greatest thing in the world.'”
For the first time since his 1988 drama “Patty Hearst,” Schrader is back in what he calls “the main show” — competing for the Palme d’Or — with “Oh, Canada.” The film, adapted from a novel by Russell Banks, stars Richard Gere (who reunited with Schrader decades after “American Gigolo”) as a dying filmmaker who tells his life story in a documentary. Jacob Elordi plays him in flashbacks from the 70s.
After the Cannes lineup was announced, Schrader shared an old photo on Facebook of himself, Coppola and Lucas — all main characters in what was then called New Hollywood — and the caption “Together again.”
“I will be there at the same time as Francis. The question arises whether either of us will be invited again for the closing ceremony,” says Schrader, referring to the moment when the winners are invited to stay for the closing ceremony. “I hope Francis or I can come back on closing night for the George thing.”
Whoever walks away with the Palme – the handicap has already begun – will be decided by a jury chaired by Greta Gerwig, fresh from the colossal success of “Barbie”. But this year’s list will have a lot to live up to. Last year, three films nominated for Best Picture premiered at Cannes: Palme winner Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” by Martin Scorsese.
But what really defines Cannes are the emerging filmmakers. Among those who are likely to make an impression this year, we find Julien Colonna, the Corsican director based in Paris and co-writer of “Royaume”. The film, noticed in Un Certain Regard, is the brutal coming-of-age of a teenager (newcomer Ghjuvanna Benedetti) on the run with her father (Saveriu Santucci), a Corsican clan leader.
“We wanted to come up with a kind of anti-population movie,” Colonna says, referring to the predominance of “Godfather”-inspired gangster dramas. “As a viewer, this annoys me quite a bit. I think we need to move on and offer another prism.”
“The Kingdom,” Colonna’s first feature film, was born from her own anxieties surrounding the birth of her child six years ago. It is an entirely fictional film, but it has personal roots for Colonna, who was inspired by a memory of a camping trip that he realized years later was “an entirely different matter for my father”. He shot most of the film in Corsica, a few kilometers from his hometown.
“This is where I grew up,” Colonna says, smiling. “That’s where I learned to swim. The shower where his kiss took place is the shower where I kissed for the first time.”
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