One year after being canceled, the movie world goes back to the Mediterranean for the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival. Spike Lee is the head of the jury and Leos Carax is back after a nine-year gap from his previous movie, Holy Motors, to open the festival with his first musical and English-language film, Annette. It stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as a husband and wife whose daughter is born with an unexpected gift. That is just one film to keep an eye on. The rest of the list has its collective array of languages, genres, and categories where the global world reconvenes to celebrate the best of cinema in the midst of massive pandemic. Plus, Jodie Foster will be getting an honorary Palme d’Or, joining Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Agnes Varda, and Alain Delon among those who have been awarded as such.
The biggest one we are all curious about is Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, a tri-storyline around the foreign bureau of a Kansas newspaper and the paper’s editor played by Anderson collab Bill Murray. The paper is inspired by one of Anderson’s favorites, The New Yorker, and takes out stories from the past set around France’s historical moments and colorful characters with the orgy of amazing actors in Anderson’s romp. Sean Penn is back in the director/actor’s position and starring along with her daughter, Dylan, in Flag Day, about a con artist and the relationship with his daughter. Penn also has his Milk co-star Josh Brolin, plus Eddie Marsan and Miles Teller. Also coming back is Sean Baker four years after The Florida Project with Red Rocket, the story about an ex-porn star who returns back to his small hometown in Texas.
Two American films being shown out of competition come from Todd McCarthy and Todd Haynes. McCarthy has his crime drama Stillwater starring Matt Damon as an oil driller who learns his daughter (Abigail Breslin) has been arrested, accused of killing her girlfriend in France. Moving to France, he struggles with the country’s legal system and the language while trying to prove his daughter’s innocence. Haynes goes from drama to documentary with The Velvet Underground about the band of the same name, famous for being part of Andy Warhol’s creation and fronted by the late Lou Reed. Just recently, F9 was announced to make a special appearance as the incoming blockbuster and who knows how the judgmental French crowd will think of the next chapter in the franchise.
Outside of the United States, other major directors are coming back with more statement works. Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi returns with A Hero and Amazon Studios has already bought the rights to distribution; Farhadi has yet to win the Palme d’Or, so he could breakthrough here. Mia Hansen-Løve is one of four female directors in the competition with Bergman Island starring Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, and Mia Wasikowska in a drama shot on the Swedish island of Faro, home to Ingmar Bergman. Previous Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard returns with Paris, 13th District in which he co-wrote with Portrait of a Lady On Fire director Celine Sciamma; Audiard previous made his English-language debut with The Sisters Brothers. Another former Palme d’Or winner, Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul, has his English-language debut, Memoria, starring Tilda Swinton.
The festival is underway after missing out last year. Normalcy is just about here again and it is a great feeling to hear the news about what is happening along the French Riviera again. Vive le cinéma!!!
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