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Cannes Film Festival · 2025

Cannes Film Festival 2025

Critics' Week

In addition to the features here there are a number of short films in the line-up

Programme

11 films · 9 reviews

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Adam's Sake (L'intérêt d'Adam)

Review preview for Adam's Sake

Drucker, who earlier thrived as a character or supporting actress, once again demonstrates that she has the authority for lead parts.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 4 out of 5
Following a court ruling, four-year-old Adam is hospitalised for malnutrition. The head nurse faces a tricky battle to balance the competing interests of child, parent and hospital.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2025; Director: Laura Wandel; Writer: Laura Wandel; Stars: Léa Drucker, Anamaria Vartolomei, Alex Descas, Jules Delsart, Léo Delsart, Claire Bodson, Laurent Capelluto, Timur Magomedgadzhiev, Charlotte De Bruyne, Monia Douieb, Sonia Bekam, May Uhoda)

Full review

Opening Film

Baise-en-ville

Sprite, 25, is desperate to find a job. To work, he needs a driver’s licence; and to pay for his driver’s licence, he needs a job. He is hired by a startup that cleans villas after parties; but how can he possibly commute late at night? He signs up for a dating app to charm young women living close to the houses he has to clean. One small problem: Sprite is not much of a seducer.

(Country: France; Year: 2025; Director: Martin Jauvat; Writer: Martin Jauvat; Stars: Michel Hazanavicius, Emmanuelle Bercot, Géraldine Pailhas, Jérôme Niel, Sébastien Chassagne, Annabelle Lengronne, William Lebghil, Anaïde Rozam, Martin Jauvat, Mahaut Adam, Mahamadou Sangaré)

Special Screening

Dandelion's Odyssey (Planètes)

Review preview for Dandelion's Odyssey

Animator Momoko Seto primarily deserves praise for imbuing each seed with a distinctive personality so that although the film is without dialogue we always know which of our adventurers we’re observing.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Dendelion, Baraban, Léonto and Taraxa - four dandelion achenes that survive from a series of nuclear explosions destroying Earth - are propelled into the cosmos. After crash-landing on an unknown planet, they set out in search of soil where their species might survive.

(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2025; Director: Momoko Seto; Writer: Mariette Désert, Alain Layrac, Momoko Seto)

Full review

Closing Film

Imago

After the director receives some land in Georgia by the Chechnyan border, he contemplates building a house but asks - 'How could I live in such a place?'

(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2025; Director: Déni Oumar Pitsaev)

Kika

Review preview for Kika

So much is happening at once in Kika’s life that the viewer has a hard time grasping the supposedly long lasting emotional challenges she is facing.

Alex Petrescu · 2.5 out of 5
A grieving new mother, while struggling to make ends meet for her family, uncovers an unexpected passion within herself.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2025; Director: Alexe Poukine; Writer: Alexe Poukine, Thomas van Zuylen; Stars: Manon Clavel, Suzanne Elbaz, Makita Samba, Thomas Coumand)

Full review

Left-Handed Girl

Review preview for Left-Handed Girl

The title stops being metaphor and becomes a wound you can watch forming in real time.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
A single mother and her two daughters return to Taipei to open a night market stand. Three generations of family secrets begin to unravel after the youngest daughter who’s left-handed is told by her traditional grandfather to never use her "devil hand”.

(Country: Taiwan, France; Year: 2025; Director: Tsou Shih-Ching; Writer: Sean Baker, Tsou Shih-Ching; Stars: Janel Tsai, Nina Ye, Huang Teng-Hui, Ma Shi-Yuan, Akio Chen, Chao Xin-Yan)

Full review

Love Letters (Des preuves d'amour)

Review preview for Love Letters

On the technical level, Jacques Girault’s usually hand-held cinematography keeps the immediacy of associated with that choice, but never slips into “chaos cinema” shakiness.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 3 out of 5
Céline is expecting her firstborn. But she’s not the one who’s pregnant. In three months, her wife Nadia will give birth to their daughter. Under the gaze of her friends, her mother, and the law, Céline looks for her place and sense of legitimacy.

(Country: France; Year: 2025; Director: Alice Douard; Writer: Alice Douard, Laurette Polmanss; Stars: Ella Rumpf, Félix Kysyl, Monia Chokri, Anne Le Ny, Noémie Lvovsky, Édouard Sulpice, Eva Huault, Julien Gaspar-Oliveri)

Full review

Special Screening

Nino

Review preview for Nino

Nino offers a glimpse into an ordinary, possibly unfulfilled life and the psyche of a contemporary man trying to reconfigure things in the wake of a challenge.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 3.5 out of 5
Seventy-two hours before Nino's chemotherapy, he must complete the two missions given to him by his doctor.

(Country: France; Year: 2025; Director: Pauline Loquès; Writer: Pauline Loquès; Stars: Théodore Pellerin, Salomé Dewaels, Jeanne Balibar, Camille Rutherford, Victoire Du Bois, William Lebghil, Mounir Belhidaoui, Estelle Meyer, Mathieu Amalric)

Full review See: Director talks of a personal tragedy that inspired her first feature

Reedland (Rietland)

Review preview for Reedland

Writer/director Sven Bresser lets events unfold slowly and makes great use of silence.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
When reed cutter Johan discovers the lifeless body of a girl on his land, he is overcome by an ambiguous sense of guilt. While taking care of his granddaughter, he sets out on a quest to track down evil. But darkness can thrive in unexpected places.

(Country: Netherlands; Year: 2025; Director: Sven Bresser; Writer: Sven Bresser; Stars: Gerrit Knobbe, Loïs Reinders)

Full review

Sleepless City (Ciudad Sin Sueño)

Review preview for Sleepless City

The “star player” is the director of photography Rui Poças

Marko Stojiljkovic · 2.5 out of 5
Toni, a 15-year-old Roma boy, lives in the largest illegal slum in Europe, on the outskirts of Madrid. Proud to belong to his family of scrap dealers, he follows his grandfather everywhere. But when demolition companies start closing in on their land, the family is divided and choices must be made.

(Country: France, Spain; Year: 2025; Director: Guillermo Galoe; Writer: Guillermo Galoe, Victor Alonso-Berbel; Stars: Antonio "Toni" Fernández Gabarre, Bilal Sedraoui, Jesus "Chule" Fernández Silva, Felisa Romero Molina, Pura Salazar, Elisa Fernández, Julio Fernández Romero)

Full review

A Useful Ghost (Pee Chai Dai Ka)

Review preview for A Useful Ghost

Not only ambitious – a term often used to damn films with faint praise – but successfully so.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
March is mourning his wife Nat who has recently passed away due to dust pollution. He discovers her spirit has returned by possessing the vacuum cleaner. But to become a useful ghost, she first needs to get rid of the useless ones.

(Country: Thailand; Year: 2025; Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke; Writer: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke; Stars: Wanlop Rungkumjad, Wisarut Himmarat, Apasiri Nitibhon, Wisarut Homhuan)

Full review See: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke on mixing things up in A Useful Ghost