Screen staff preview each of the titles in the Cannes Film Festival’s Special, Midnight Screenings and Premiere sections, which this year include films from Wim Wenders, Robert Rodriguez, Steve McQueen and Anna Novion. The festival runs May 16-27.
Special Screenings
Anselm (Ger)
Dir. Wim Wenders
The 1984 Palme d’Or winner with Paris, Texas, Wenders spent two years making this 3D documentary about painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, profiling the artist’s five-decade career in his native Germany and current creative home France. Anselm is produced by Karsten Brünig (Race), with cinematography by Franz Lustig (The Aftermath). Wenders’ documentary features Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Pina (2011) and The Salt Of The Earth (2014) were all Oscar-nominated.
Contact: HanWay Films
Bread And Roses (US-Afg)
Dir. Sahra Mani
Afghan documentarian Mani premiered her 2018 debut feature A Thousand Girls Like Me at Hot Docs in Toronto, then toured the festival circuit including pit stops at Sheffield DocFest and Amsterdam’s IDFA. Her follow-up captures the experiences of Afghan women under the Taliban since it regained control of the country. Mani produces alongside Excellent Cadaver partners Jennifer Lawrence and Justine Ciarrocchi (2022 Toronto premiere Causeway).
Contact: Chris Donnelly, LBI Entertainment
The Daughters Of Fire (Port)
Dir. Pedro Costa
Portugal’s Costa made his Cannes debut in Competition in 2006 with fifth feature Colossal Youth, returning in 2007 and 2009 with Directors’ Fortnight entries O Estado Do Mundo and Change Nothing — the former a collection of six shorts from Costa and five other directors. His latest short — one of two short films this year selected for Special Screenings, and titled As Filhas Do Fogo in Portuguese — is set on the Cape Verde island of Fogo. Alice Costa, Karyna Gomes and Elizabeth Pinard star as three sisters who are separated by the eruption of volcano Pico do Fogo. Marta Mateus produces for Lisbon-based Clarao Companhia.
Contact: Clarao Companhia
Little Girl Blue (Fr-Belg)
Dir. Mona Achache
Achache based her fourth feature on her own mother, who died leaving behind thousands of photos, letters, recordings and buried secrets. They inspired the filmmaker to bring her to life on screen with Marion Cotillard as a fictional version of the matriarch. Les Films du Poisson produces the docudrama with France 2 Cinéma as co-producer and Tandem distributing in France. Achache is known for 2009 box office-hit The Hedgehog, 2014’s Gazelles and 2021’s Second World War-set Valiant Hearts starring Camille Cottin.
Contact: Charades
Man In Black (Fr-US-UK)
Dir. Wang Bing
In addition to Competition titleYouth (Spring), renowned Chinese documentarian Wang has a second title playing at Cannes this year. The ‘man in black’ from the title is 86-year-old Wang Xilin, one of China’s most influential modern classical composers and also a target of persecution during the Cultural Revolution. The 60-minute documentary contains excerpts from his symphonies as he revisits some of the horrifying events that still haunt him. It is shot by Caroline Champetier and edited by Claire Atherton, with Gladys Glover and WIL Productions as producers. Wang was last in Cannes in 2018 with Special Screenings premiere Dead Souls.
Contact: Maria A Ruggieri, Asian Shadows
Marguerite’s Theorem (Fr-Switz)
Dir. Anna Novion
Ella Rumpf, seen in Julia Ducournau’s 2016 feature Raw, plays a mathematics student at a top French university who quits everything and starts anew when a mistake on the day of her thesis presentation shakes up her planned-out life. Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Julien Frison also star in the film, which is produced by France’s TS Productions and Switzerland’s Beauvoir Films. It marks Novion’s third feature following Grown Ups and Rendezvous In Kiruna.
Contact: Pyramide International
Occupied City (Neth-UK-US)
Dir. Steve McQueen
McQueen was the first UK director to win the Caméra d’Or, which he scooped for Hunger in 2008. He returns to Cannes with his first feature documentary, examining Amsterdam under Nazi occupation during the Second World War, alongside the city’s recent years of pandemic and protest. Clocking in at four hours, the film is informed by the book Atlas Of An Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945, by McQueen’s author wife Bianca Stigter. It is produced by Floor Onrust, McQueen, Anna Smith Tenser and Stigter, with funders including Film4 and A24.
Contact: A24
Pictures Of Ghosts (Braz)
Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho
Mendonca Filho returns to Cannes with a documentary, after his fiction features Bacurau (2019) and Aquarius (2016) played in Competition. The Brazilian director visits his hometown of Recife, in the northeast of the country, to highlight former cinemas that were once a meeting place used by millions of people across the 20th century. Although presenting a personal point of view, the old cinemas are remembered through archive material as historical and cultural spaces that witnessed changes in society over the decades.
Contact: Florencia Gil, Urban Sales
Strange Way Of Life (Sp)
Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Short films traditionally do not have theatrical life, but Almodovar is the exception: his The Human Voice played extensively in cinemas following its Venice 2020 premiere. His new short, western Strange Way Of Life, stars Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as a rancher and a sheriff with a shared past as hired gunmen. The film is a presentation from fashion house Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, and is produced by Pedro and Agustin Almodovar’s El Deseo. Sony Pictures Classics acquired worldwide rights, excluding the UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Latin America.
Contact: Sony Pictures Classics
Midnight Screenings
Acid (Fr)
Dir. Just Philippot
This second feature from Philippot follows his 2020 Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Swarm. Based on his 2019 Sundance short of the same name, Acid stars Guillaume Canet opposite Laetitia Dosch who was last in Cannes in Léonor Serraille’s 2017 Camera d’Or winner Jeune Femme. The apocalyptic thriller with an environmental focus follows a teenage girl and her parents on the verge of separation as clouds of devastating acid rain fall on France. It is produced by Pathé Films and Bonne Pioche Cinema with UMedia.
Contact: Pathé International
Hypnotic (US)
Dir. Robert Rodriguez
Versatile genre director Rodriguez — whose Sin City (co-directed with Frank Miller) played in Cannes Competition in 2005, with Desperado landing out of Competition in 1995 — returns to the festival with his first feature for the big screen since 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel. Ben Affleck stars as a detective investigating a mystery that involves his own missing daughter and a secret government programme. Rodriguez showed a work-in-progress screening of Hypnotic at SXSW in March. Ketchup Entertainment will release in more than 2,000 sites domestically after original US distributor Solstice Studios shut down.
Contact: Studio 8
Kennedy (India)
Dir. Anurag Kashyap
The Hindi-language Kennedy is the story of an insomniac ex-policeman who, despite being thought dead, still works for the corrupt system. The film stars Rahul Bhat, who also appeared in Kashyap’s 2013 crime drama Ugly, which screened in Directors’ Fortnight, as did the director’s Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012) and Raman Raghav 2.0 (aka Psycho Raman, 2016). He also directed a segment of anthology Bombay Talkies, a Cannes Special Screening in 2013. Kennedy is part of Zee Studios’ 2023 distribution slate, as is Kashyap’s romantic drama Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat, which premiered at Marrakech 2022.
Contact: Zee Studios
The Kings Of Algiers (Fr)
Dir. Elias Belkeddar
The French-Algerian filmmaker returns to Cannes — having previously won best short in 2018 for A Wedding Day — with his debut feature about a has-been gangster living in exile in Algeria. Belkeddar co-wrote and produced Romain Gavras’s Athena (Venice Competition 2022) and also Antoine de Bary’s My Days Of Glory (Venice Horizons 2019). The Kings Of Algiers (Omar La Fraise) is produced by Chi-Fou-Mi Productions and Belkeddar’s Iconoclast, with Studiocanal distributing in France and handling international sales.
Contact: Marta Monjanel, Studiocanal
Project Silence (S Kor)
Dir. Kim Tae-gon
South Korea’s Kim (Familyhood) makes his Cannes debut with this horror-tinged action film unfolding on the country’s famously long Incheon Grand Bridge. It is produced by Kim Yong-hwa of hit franchise Along With The Gods, with Hong Kyeong-pyo — who shot Broker and Parasite — serving as cinematographer. Lee Sun-kyun (Sleep, Parasite) plays a man driving his daughter to Incheon Airport when a thick fog causes a massive auto pile-up and they are gridlocked alongside a tow-truck driver played by Ju Ji-hoon (Along With The Gods franchise) and mutated military dogs.
Contact: CJ ENM
Cannes Premiere
Along Came Love (Fr)
Dir. Katell Quillévéré
French writer/director Quillévéré made her mark at Directors’ Fortnight in 2010 with debut feature Love Like Poison, consolidating her success with Suzanne (Critics’ Week 2013). Following ensemble drama Heal The Living (Venice 2016) and a venture into TV with 2022 Series Mania prizewinner Reign Supreme, Quillévéré returns with a drama featuring Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste, both in Cannes last year with Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing. Produced by Justin Taurand for Les Films du Bélier and David Thion and Philippe Martin for Les Films Pelléas, Along Came Love (Le Temps D’Aimer) follows a relationship over 20 years, starting in the late 1940s.
Contact: Charades
Bonnard, Pierre & Marthe (Fr)
Dir. Martin Provost
Provost — whose Séraphine swept the Césars in 2009 — makes his Cannes debut with this self-penned biographical romantic drama focusing on French Post-Impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard (Vincent Macaigne) and his relationship with muse Marthe de Méligny (Cécile de France). Francois Kraus and Denis Pineau-Valencienne (Mascarade, La Belle Époque) produce for festival-friendly production house Les Films du Kiosque, in co-production with France 3 Cinema, Volapuk and UMedia. Stacy Martin and Anouk Grinberg also star.
Contact: Memento International
Close Your Eyes (Sp-Arg)
Dir. Victor Erice
Spanish filmmaker Erice returns to Cannes 31 years after Dream Of Light — his last feature — shared the jury prize. Erice’s fourth feature (also following 1973 San Sebastian winner The Spirit Of The Beehive and 1983’s El Sur) stars Manolo Solo and José Coronado in the story of a famous Spanish actor who disappears while filming a movie, and also reunites him with Ana Torrent 50 years after The Spirit Of The Beehive. Tandem Films, Pecado Films, Nautilius Films and Pampa Films co-produce this long-awaited comeback, which is written by the director with Michel Gaztambide (co-writer of Julio Medem’s Vacas).
Contact: Film Factory
Eureka (Fr-Mex-Ger-Port-Arg)
Dir. Lisandro Alonso
Argentinian filmmaker Alonso brought all of his five previous features to Cannes, beginning with Un Certain Regard entry La Libertad in 2001, and following with Los Muertos (2004), Fantasma (2006), Liverpool (2008) and Jauja (2014). Eureka — which is told in different sections across several timelines and was filmed in Almeria, Spain — examines the Indigenous peoples of the Americas across the centuries. The cast is led by Viggo Mortensen, Chiara Mastroianni and Maria de Medeiros. The international co-production is lead produced by Fiorelli Moretti and Hédi Zardi for France’s Luxbox.
Contact: Luxbox
Just The Two Of Us (Fr)
Dir. Valérie Donzelli
Festival favourites Virginie Efira and Melvil Poupaud come together for this toxic-relationship drama from French actress/filmmaker Donzelli — who launched two of her previous five features as director at Cannes: Declaration Of War in 2011 and Marguerite & Julien in 2015. Based on the novel by Eric Reinhardt, Just The Two Of Us stars Efira as a woman who, little by little, finds herself caught in the grip of a possessive and dangerous man (Poupaud). Happening director Audrey Diwan co-wrote the script, and the film is produced by Happening producers Rectangle Productions.
Contact: Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas
Kubi (Jap)
Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Japan’s Kitano returns to Cannes, having played in Competition with Kikujiro in 1999 and Outrage in 2010. The story is based around a historical 16th-century feud, centred on powerful real-life Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga, and combines intense violence with dark humour. Kitano wrote the screenplay based on his own novel, and acts in the film alongside Ryo Kase (Outrage) and Hidetoshi Nishijima of Oscar-winning Cannes Competition title Drive My Car. Kitano won the Golden Lion at Venice for Hana-Bi (aka Fireworks) in 1997 and the Silver Lion for Zatoichi in 2003.
Contact: Chiyo Mori, Kadokawa
Lost In The Night (Mex-Ger-Neth)
Dir. Amat Escalante
Previously in Cannes with his first three features Blood (2005), Los Bastordos (2008) and Heli (2013), and winning the director prize for the latter Competition entry, Mexico’s Escalante returns to the festival with his sixth feature. The self-penned dramatic thriller tells the story of a man seeking justice five years after his activist professor mother disappeared while protesting the local mining industry. Escalante reteams as producer with Nicolás Celis and Fernanda de la Peza, who worked in producorial capacities on Escalante’s 2016 Venice and Toronto entry The Untamed.
Contact: The Match Factory
Profiles by Nikki Baughan, Ellie Calnan, Dani Clarke, Ben Dalton, Charles Gant, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Wendy Mitchell, Jean Noh, Jonathan Romney, Michael Rosser, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
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