The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is all set to kickstart today (May 14) and run till May 25 in the south of France. Popular for its glamour and cinematic brilliance since 1946, the international film festival goes on for 12 days every year.
Amid ongoing global unrest, the red carpet is set to unfold its own set of drama from the Palais des Festivals. From threats of festival workers’ strikes, France’s socio-political situation intensifying the #MeToo movement, and ongoing crises including the Israel-Hamas war and Russia-Ukraine crisis to brilliant films competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, here’s a list of things to expect at the Cannes Film Festival 2024.
Cannes Film Festival 2024 might be setting the stage for several potential controversies
The first is the threatened strikes by festival employees demanding changes in the French labor law, They claim their temporary work prevents them from being eligible for unemployment benefits. This has the potential to bring the entire festival to a halt.Â
The other is an ongoing issue of the French film industry grappling with its own #MeToo movement. Additional allegations are expected to come out during the festival, especially with French director and actress Judith Godrèche bringing her short film Moi Aussi (Me Too) to the festival. She recently made headlines when she accused filmmaker Benoît Jacquot of sexually abusing her in the 1980s when she was 14 and accused director Jacques Doillon of two counts of sexual assault.
The Apprentice, Donald Trump’s biopic at the Cannes Film Festival
No respite from the US presidential election at Cannes either. Director Ali Abbasi has brought young Donald Trump’s cutting teeth into politics through his film The Apprentice. Sebastian Stan is playing the role of young Trump while Maria Bakalova is playing his first wife, Ivana, and Succession star Jeremy Strong takes on Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor.
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Francis Ford Coppola’s return to the Croisette
The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes over 45 years ago for Apocalypse Now, is back to the festival with his much-awaited passion project Megalopolis. Adam Driver Adam Driver plays a creative architect in the film tasked with rebuilding a city after a catastrophic event. Coppola funded the movie entirely costing $120 million which has so far discouraged potential distributors.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga debuts at the Cannes Film Festival 2024
Touted to be the biggest movie at Cannes this year, George Miller’s post-apocalyptic action franchise Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to the Oscar-winning film Mad Max: Fury Road which also premiered at the 2015 Cannes.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character and Chris Hemsworth, among others. Hemsworth’s role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is his second favorite role after the 2013 film Rush, he said in an interview with Vanity Fair earlier this month.
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Other films contending for this year’s Palme d’Or
Introduced in 1955, the Palme d’Or is the biggest prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Every year several films from all over the world compete for the title and this year is nonetheless. This year, the jury is headed by Greta Gerwig (Barbie) along with French actor Eva Green and Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone.Â
Besides The Apprentice and Megalopolis, yet another notable film is Kinds of Kindness for which Emma Stone has once again reunited with filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos. Other films contending for the title include Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, Sean Baker’s Anora, British director Andrea Arnold’s Bird, Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s Caught By The Tides, French director Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance.
Another talked-about film to be showcased and competing for the title is The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. He was given an eight-year prison term in the previous week for “collusion against national security.” The timing of this sentence seems to be an attempt to take the movie out of the festival entirely, as the autocratic regime has been pursuing the director for years.
Other notable films premiering at the festival but not in the competition include French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act set to open the festiva; Rumours which is a dark satire about world leaders getting lost in a forest after meeting at a G7 summit; The Balconettes from the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Noémie Merlant; and American Horizon by Kevin Costner for his first feature film in over two decades.
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