At Cannes this year, there바카라s a record number of seven female filmmakers in Competition. Juliette Binoche presides over the jury that includes last year바카라s Grand Prix winner Payal Kapadia. Cannes is coming off a glorious year, one that reaped a staggering count of 31 Oscar nominations for its 2024 titles. The film production company Neon바카라which is behind five Palme d바카라Or winners in a row바카라is attached this year to two high-profile Competition highlights: Sentimental Value and Alpha.
Here are sixteen titles that should be on your radar:
Die, My Love
Nearly ten years since her last, Cannes darling Lynne Ramsay teams up with Jennifer Lawrence for an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz바카라s eponymous 2017 novel. Lawrence, also producing, stars as a new mother grappling with post-partum depression. Robert Pattinson co-stars, with Sissy Spacek and LaKeith Stanfield in supporting roles.
Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier바카라s sublime The Worst Person In The World was one of Cannes 2021바카라s breakouts. Its lead actress Renate Reinsve won Best Actress at the festival and emerged as the edition바카라s true discovery. It went on to fetch two Oscar nominations. The two reteam in Sentimental Value, that centres a strained father-daughter relationship. An intimate family drama, the film also stars Elle Fanning and Stellan Skarsgård.
Alpha
Julia Ducournau blazed out in 2021 with her Palme d바카라Or-winning body-horror sensation Titane. Described as 바카라her most personal and profound바카라 project, Alpha is set during the AIDs crisis in 바카라80s New York and revolves around a teen who comes home one day with a mysterious tattoo. Neon already boarded the film last year. It stars Tahar Rahim and Golshifteh Farahani.
Highest 2 Lowest
Denzel Washington and Spike Lee reunite after 19 years in this revisionist spin on the 1963 Kurosawa procedural classic. Premiering Out of Competition, Washington plays a music mogul confronted with a ransom demand. Jeffrey Wright plays his driver and friend whose son gets kidnapped.
Mirrors No. 3
One of the greatest German filmmakers working today, Christian Petzold바카라usually a mainstay at the Berlin Film Festival where he has won several times, including for his previous Afire (2023)바카라makes his foray at Cannes. Unfavorably shunted to the Director바카라s Fortnight when he should have been a Competition shoo-in, Mirrors No. 3 reunites him with his muse Paula Beer. She leads the enigmatic study of a woman who narrowly survives a car accident and is sheltered by a stranger바카라s family where she rather comfortably settles in.
Homebound
Neeraj Ghaywan returns to the Cannes Film Festival with his second feature film Homebound in the Un Certain Regard category a decade after his directorial debut Masaan premiered under the same category there in 2015. Featuring Ishaan Khatter in the lead, it has Martin Scorsese attached as executive producer.
Yes!
Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid had been bestowed the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2019 by Juliette Binoche for Synonyms. To India, Lapid is no stranger as he famously called out IFFI in 2022 over its selection of The Kashmir Files, stating it as 바카라vulgar propaganda바카라. A director who doesn바카라t hold back on articulating rage against the State as a disaffected, anguished citizenry, his latest Yes! is a three-hour satirical comedy about a couple who decides to say yes to anything hurled at them. Lapid바카라s last film Ahed바카라s Knee nabbed a Jury Prize. However, Yes! plays in Director바카라s Fortnight.
Resurrection
The final addition to the Competition, Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan바카라s latest stars Hong Kong-Taiwanese icon Shu Qi as a woman, who in a post-apocalyptic future, begins to have feelings for an android. Expectations are sky-high for a new work after seven years from the director who loves playing with various modes and formats of storytelling.
It Was Just An Accident
Last in Cannes in 2021 with his documentary The Year Of The Everlasting Storm, acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi바카라s latest is a road film combining moral quandaries with a taut, thrilling edge. Detailed plot is under wraps.
Sound of Falling
Mascha Schilinski바카라s sophomore feature revolves around four generations of girls, who each spend their youth on the same farm in northern Germany. It carries solid international buzz, marking the first German film to compete for the Palme d바카라Or in eight years.
Eddington
Horror king Ari Aster plays with the Western in Eddington. Set in a small town during the pandemic, the film swoops on the clash between law enforcement and local politicians. Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal star, along with Austin Butler and Emma Stone. It바카라s an A24 release.
Romeria
Following Berlinale Golden Bear-winning Alcarras in 2022, the Catalan director Carla Simon turns again to a work that바카라s rich in family history and memory. Romeria accompanies a woman who travels to Galicia to meet her paternal grandparents, uncles and aunts for the first time. AIDs forms the pained background of scarred memories and repressed emotion.
Sirât
Following Cannes wins for all his first three features, Galician filmmaker Oliver Laxe shoots into Competition with Sirât. The film follows a father and son plunging into a rave deep in the mountains of Morocco. Searching for Mar바카라daughter and sister바카라the two have to face the limits of their own questions amidst utter wilderness. The film continues Laxe바카라s abiding preoccupation with non-professionals, blurring lines between fiction and ethnography.
The History of Sound
Oliver Hermanus바카라 film features two of the most alluring young stars, Josh O바카라Connor and Paul Mescal, as lovers travelling together in 1919, recording the ballads of rural New Englanders. An adaptation of Ben Shattuck바카라s short story, this looks set to scorch the Croisette.
The Mastermind
No one spins mellow tales of social outliers quite like American indie icon Kelly Reichardt. She returns to Competition two years after the lovely, wistful Showing Up (2022) didn바카라t even register as it should have. Re-teaming with John Magaro, Reichardt directs a 1970s heist thriller with Josh O바카라Connor in the lead.
The Secret Agent
Brazil바카라s foremost filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho pairs with Wagner Moura in this deep dive into the military dictatorship that rocked the country in the 바카라70s. The Narcos star essays an academic on the run while trying to dig out buried records. Filho won the Jury Prize in 2019 at Cannes for Bacurau.
