Screen staff preview each of the titles in Cannes Film Festival parallel section Directors’ Fortnight, which this year includes films from Kantemir Balagov, Radu Jude, Clio Barnard and Bruno Dumont.
The festival runs May 12-23.
9 Temples To Heaven (Thai-Sing-Fr-Nor)
Dir. Sompot Chidgasornpongse
Produced by Kissada Kamyoung and 2010 Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, this narrative feature debut charts a family of nine as they embark on a nine-temple pilgrimage journey within a single day, hoping to prolong the life of their ailing grandmother. Backers include Kick The Machine Films, E&W, petit chaos and Needle in the Haystack. Thai filmmaker Sompot previously worked with Apichatpong as assistant director on Cannes titles Tropical Malady, Cemetery Of Splendour and Memoria.
Contact: Playtime
Atonement (US)
Dir. Reed Van Dyk
With several acclaimed shorts, including 2017 Oscar nominee DeKalb Elementary, under his belt, US writer/director Van Dyk makes his feature debut with this drama based on a 2012 article in The New Yorker. Kenneth Branagh, Hiam Abbass and Boyd Holbrook star in the story of a US Marine trying to reconcile with the surviving members of an Iraqi family devastated by the soldier’s unit during the early days of the Iraq War. Star Thrower Entertainment produced and CAA Media Finance is handling US sales.
Contact: The Veterans
Butterfly Jam (Fr)
Dir. Kantemir Balagov
Opening this year’s Directors’ Fortnight, Russian director Balagov’s English-language film stars Barry Keoghan, Riley Keough and Harry Melling, and is set in a tight-knit US community of Circassian immigrants. Producers are Why Not Productions and AR Content. It will mark Balagov’s third time in Cannes after his previous two features played in Un Certain Regard: Tesnota in 2017 and Beanpole in 2019.
Contact: Flavien Eripret, Goodfellas
Clarissa (Nigeria-US)
Dirs. Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri
The Nigeria-born Esiri brothers follow their 2020 festival favourite This Is My Desire (Eyimofe) with a modern reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Sophie Okonedo stars as a society woman preparing to host a party in her Lagos home, where she will unexpectedly encounter once-intimate friends from her youth. Per Capita Productions and Invention Studios produced, and financing came from Afreximbank Creative Africa Nexus and MBO Capital. Neon acquired worldwide rights and will release the film theatrically in the US and handle sales through its international arm.
Contact: Neon International
Death Has No Master (Ven-Can-It-Lux)
Dir. Jorge Thielen Armand
This internationally co-produced Spanish and Italian-language drama centres on a woman (Asia Argento) who travels to Venezuela to sell her late father’s plantation and is forced to confront its current occupants and violent legacy. Caracas-born writer/director Armand, whose previous feature Fortitude played widely on the festival circuit in 2020, produces through his Canadian-Venezuelan company La Faena Films. Also producing are Volos Films and Faits Divers Media, while financial backers include Telefilm Canada, MIC Italy and Film Fund Luxembourg.
Contact: Lucky Number
The Diary Of A Chambermaid (Rom-Fr)
Dir. Radu Jude
Romanian filmmaker Jude makes his Croisette debut, after most recently premiering Kontinental ’25 in Berlin and Dracula at Locarno. His latest is a variation on the 1900 novel by Octave Mirbeau, previously adapted by Jean Renoir, Benoît Jacquot and, most famously, Luis Buñuel. Here, Ana Dumitrascu (known for Dracula and Romania’s 2021 Oscar entry Immaculate) plays an immigrant working for a family in Bordeaux. Vincent Macaigne and Mélanie Thierry head the French cast. The film is an SBS Production with Romania’s Avanpost.
Contact: SBS Distribution
Dora (S Kor-Fr-Lux)
Dir. July Jung
A young woman struggling with her physical and mental health travels to a seaside town and begins to recover after finding love, but as relationships form so do conflicts. The drama stars actress and former K-pop idol Kim Do-yeon as Dora alongside acclaimed Japanese star Sakura Ando in her first Korean film. Ando has previously attended Cannes with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster (2023) and Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters (2018). It marks the third feature by Jung after A Girl At My Door, which played in Un Certain Regard in 2014, and Next Sohee, which premiered in Critics’ Week in 2022.
Contact: Finecut
Double Freedom (Chile-Arg-Lux-Ger-UK)
Dir. Lisandro Alonso
Writer/director Alonso, a key figure in the New Argentinian Cinema and ‘slow cinema’ movements, delivers a Spanish-language sequel to his 2001 debut La Libertad, which screened in Un Certain Regard. Double Freedom sees the life of the original feature’s solitary woodcutter upended by an unexpected responsibility. Production companies include the filmmaker’s own 4L, the UK’s Deptford Films and Chile’s Planta. Alonso’s other Cannes premieres include 2023’s Eureka and 2014’s Jauja.
Contact: Luxbox Films
Gabin (Fr-Ger-Switz)
Dir. Maxence Voiseux
The director of several short and medium-length documentaries, including The Heirs (2016) and Ultras (2023), Voiseux’s debut feature is an ambitious project filmed over 10 years — a portrait of Gabin Jourdel from the age of eight to 18. The youngest sibling in a family living in northern France, Gabin is expected to take over his father’s butcher shop, but has other dreams. Gabin is an Alter Ego production with Germany’s Ama Film and Switzerland’s Rita Productions, with Arizona Distribution releasing in France.
Contact: Lightdox
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning (UK)
Dir. Clio Barnard
Barnard returns to Cannes with her fifth feature, after Ali & Ava played Directors’ Fortnight in 2021 and The Selfish Giant won the Europa Cinemas Label in 2013. Her latest stars Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew as a group of friends approaching the age of 30. Tracy O’Riordan produces for Moonspun Films with funding from BBC Film, BFI and US firm TPC. Curzon distributes in the UK and Ireland. Irish playwright Enda Walsh wrote the script from Keiran Goddard’s novel.
Contact: Charades
La Perra (Chile-Braz)
Dir. Dominga Sotomayor
This Spanish-language drama is adapted from the novel by Colombia’s Pilar Quintana, and follows a quiet woman whose adoption of a stray puppy stirs long-suppressed dreams of motherhood while reawakening a childhood trauma. Known for films including 2018’s Locarno best director prize winner Too Late To Die Young, Chilean filmmaker and artist Sotomayor was last at Cannes in 2021 as one of the directors of The Year Of The Everlasting Storm. Her latest feature is produced by RT Features and Planta.
Contact: Lucky Number
Low Expectations (Nor)
Dir. Eivind Landsvik
Norwegian music star Girl In Red (aka Marie Ulven Ringheim) makes her feature acting debut in Low Expectations, the story of an acclaimed artist who reaches breaking point and moves back home to create distance from her chaotic past. Landsvik’s 2023 short Tits launched in Cannes’ short films competition, and this marks his feature debut. Produced by Lotte Sandbu and Synnove Horsdal for Norway’s Maipo Film, Low Expectations received production backing from the Norwegian Film Institute, and is the first Norwegian film to launch in Directors’ Fortnight since 2005.
Contact: Salaud Morisset
Once Upon A Time In Harlem (US)
Dirs. William Greaves, David Greaves
Neon snapped up this documentary following its Sundance premiere in January. It features rare footage shot by David Greaves’ late father, documentarian William Greaves, during a 1972 gathering of the Harlem Renaissance’s surviving members at the New York home of Duke Ellington. It is produced by William’s granddaughter Liani Greaves with Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Anne De Mare for William Greaves Productions.
Contact: Cinetic Media
Red Rocks (Por-Fr-It-Sp)
Dir. Bruno Dumont
On the dazzling French Riviera, two gangs of kids compete in the dangerous game of cliff jumping, as one child experiences the first stirrings of the heart at barely five years old. Dumont’s career began in Directors’ Fortnight in 1997 with The Life Of Jesus, which received a Camera d’Or special mention. He has since returned with 2014 miniseries Li’l Quinquin and 2017 feature Jeannette, The Childhood Of Joan Of Arc, alongside six official selection titles. Portuguese producers Rosa Filmes had Lav Diaz’s Magellan in Cannes Premiere last year.
Contact: Luxbox Films
Shana (Fr)
Dir. Lila Pinell
Pinell’s second film and first solo effort stars Eva Huault as the titular Shana, who inherits a ring from her late grandmother meant to ward off bad luck, while her misfortunes pile up and her toxic partner is released from prison. Veteran actress Noémie Lvovsky co-stars in the feature adaptation of Pinell’s 2021 prize-winning short film Le Roi David. Producers are Ecce Films and CG Cinéma. Pinell co-directed Kiss & Cry with Chloé Mahieu, which premiered in the Acid strand at Cannes in 2017.
Contact: Losange Films
Thanks For Coming (Fr)
Dir. Alain Cavalier
With a feature-making career that began in the early 1960s, revered French veteran Cavalier has long been a Cannes fixture, from 1986 jury prize winner Thérèse, through 1993 and 2011 Competition titles Libera Me and Pater, to 2019’s Living And Knowing You Are Alive (Special Screenings). Like the latter film, Thanks For Coming is in the intimate diary mode that marks out Cavalier as a pioneer of highly personal video feature-making, and is billed as the final chapter of his screen journal.
Contact: Camera One
Too Many Beasts (Fr)
Dir. Sarah Arnold
Arnold’s debut feature is set amid a war in the French countryside between farmers and members of a gentlemen’s hunting club, which leads to murder. Alexis Manenti stars as a police officer pushed to the brink as he leads the investigation a year later. Ella Rumpf and Vincent Dedienne also star in the feature, which is produced by France’s 5 à 7 Films. Arnold’s short films have been a fixture on the festival circuit.
Contact: Playtime
Vertiginous (Fr)
Dir. Quentin Dupieux
Dupieux is doing double duty at Cannes this year, and swooped in with surprise last-minute animation Vertiginous (Le Vertige) to close Directors’ Fortnight. No details have been revealed about the plot of the film, produced by Hugo Sélignac’s Chi-Fou-Mi, but the voice cast includes frequent Dupieux collaborators Alain Chabat, Jonathan Cohen and Anaïs Demoustier.
Contact: Chi-Fou-Mi Productions
Viva Carmen (Fr-Lux)
Dir. Sébastien Laudenbach
Animation specialist Laudenbach returns to Cannes following two previous features in the Acid sidebar: 2016’s The Girl Without Hands and 2023’s Chicken For Linda!. The latter, co-directed with Chiara Malta, won best animated film at the Césars and the Lumières. His latest, showcased as a work-in-progress at Annecy last year, offers a new take on Bizet’s beloved opera, here following the adventures of a knife grinder’s assistant. It is a production by Folivari, with Pikkukala co-producing. Haut et Court is releasing in France.
Contact: Lorenzo Bellassai, Global Constellation
We Are Aliens (Japan-Fr)
Dir. Kohei Kadowaki
The debut animated feature from rising Japanese filmmaker Kadowaki follows two unlikely friends — a quiet third-grade boy and his charismatic classmate — across more than three decades as time passes and their lives diverge. We Are Aliens is produced by Japanese outfit Nothing New and France’s Miyu Productions, whose Dandelion’s Odyssey closed Critics’ Week and Death Does Not Exist played in Directors’ Fortnight last year.
Contact: Charades
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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