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Coppola, Arnold, Cronenberg hope to make bumper Cannes

Thierry Frémaux announces the return of the Festival’s big guns for 77th edition

by Richard Mowe

Clockwise from top left: Armand, The Girl With The Needle, Kinds Of Kindness and The Apprentice Photo: Film I Vast, Searchlight Pcitures, Apprentice Productions Ontario Inc/Profile Productions 2APS/Tailored Films Ltd 2023,

After what was generally considered a vintage edition of the Cannes Film Festival last year with many of the titles in the official selection receiving awards and further acclaim in festivals and critically on release (including 26 Oscar nominations and three wins) Festival director Thierry Frémaux was facing an uphill task in trumping the achievement.

Thierry Frémaux Photo: Richard Mowe

In the event it looks on paper at any rate as if he has a similar fertile formula for this year’s 77th edition over which Barbie’s Greta Gerwig will preside as president of the jury.

In addition to those already announced such as George Miller (Furiosa), Kevin Costner (Horizon) and George Lucas (honorary Golden Palm), some of Cannes most treasured names such as Francis Ford Coppola (Megalopolis), Paola Sorrentino (Parthenope), Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness), Andrea Arnold (Bird), Ali Abbasi (The Apprentice), David Cronenberg (The Shrouds), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez) and Nabil Ayouch (Everybody Loves Touda) are all returning to the fray with new and highly anticipated titles.

Frémaux, officially styled as the general delegate, and his cohort Iris Knobloch, president, divulged their hopes and dreams for another bumper year at a media gathering in Paris today at the fabled UGC Cinema on the Champs-Elysées which, along with other historic screens on the avenue, is under threat.

“This year’s selection was not that easy either coming the wake of the strike by actors and writers in the States who were protesting to preserve their jobs. Mind you at this time last year we had no idea the Festival would have such success,” Frémaux cautioned. Despite the difficulties American cinema will have strong presence with Columbia Studios celebrating their 100th anniversary on the Croisette.

Knobloch took particular pleasure in Gerwig’s presence. “She’s a young woman, full of life and talent who has unique approach. She also has this deep love of cinema and its history, while Xavier Dolan as president of Un Certain Jury has a role that fits him like a love.”

She described the Festival’s role as akin to “finding the best films, putting them into orbit and then flying them to the moon.”

Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness, is described as “a stylized three-part story set in the present that reunites the director of Poor Things with Emma Stone accompanied by Willem Dafoe.

Also in the mix is Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada with Richard Gere and Uma Thurman, based on a screenplay by the late Russell Banks on the theme of ageing and looking back on life. and Audiard’s musical melodrama Emilia Perez features Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez deals with Mexican drug cartels.

Sorrentino’s Parthenope stars Gary Oldman and takes place in Naples where a young woman fights to be taken seriously for other things than her beauty. Cronenberg’s The Shrouds teams Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger in a tale of the death of someone close to you. First time French film-maker Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a female-powered horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley has shades of Julie Ducornau’s Titane.

Cannes launch 2024 Photo: Richard Mowe

Arnold returns to the tone of her early works such as Ratcatcher for Bird which focuses on a young girl trying to find her way out of a challenging environment and marks her first narrative feature in almost a decade. The director also is being feted by the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Much attention is bound to surround Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, with Sebastian Stan (A Different Man) taking on the role of a youthful Donald Trump.

Australian director Lorcan Finnegan finds a novel role for Nicolas Cage as The Surfer which shows out of competition.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from 14 to 25 May with more titles to be divulged by Frémaux and co in the weeks in to come.

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