CANNES, France (AP) — The 78th Cannes Movie Pageant opens Tuesday with expectations working excessive for what could possibly be a banner version.
All the substances — an absurd variety of stars, top-tier filmmakers, political intrigue — appear to be lined up for the French Riviera spectacular. Over the following 12 days, Cannes will play host to megawatt premieres together with these of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Recoking,” Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” and Ari Aster’s “Eddington.”
Issues get underway Tuesday with the disclosing of Juliette Binoche’s jury, a three-film tribute to Ukraine and the opening night time movie, Amélie Bonnin’s French romance “Leave One Day.” On the competition’s opening ceremony, Robert De Niro will obtain an honorary Palme d’Or, 49 years after “Taxi Driver” received Cannes’ prime prize.
Cannes is coming off a 2024 competition that produced plenty of eventual Oscar contenders, together with “Emilia Perez,” “The Substance,” “Flow” and the very best image winner, “Anora.” Requested if he is feeling the stress this time round, competition director Thierry Frémaux mentioned the one sort of stress he believes in is in beer. (Beer on faucet in France is “bière à la pression.”)
“Indeed last year was a beautiful year,” Frémaux mentioned Monday. “But at the very time when I was with (journalists) as the festival started, we didn’t know if it was going to be a good year or not.”
This 12 months’s Cannes Movie Pageant, the premier worldwide cinematic gathering, is unspooling following U.S. President Donald Trump’s name for tariffs on films made abroad. Whereas Fremaux expressed sympathy to the reason for strengthening native film manufacturing, he mentioned it was too quickly to touch upon the still-unformed plans.
“It’s far too early in the game,” mentioned Fremaux. “But if I say one thing here at the Cannes Film Festival, we wouldn’t want the American cinema to cease to be strong. And right now, it’s very strong.”
Cannes will comply with up Tuesday’s festivities with the return Wednesday of Tom Cruise to Cannes. Three years after he introduced “Top Gun: Maverick” to the competition, he’s again with the most recent “Mission: Impossible” film.
Twenty-two movies will vie for Cannes’ prime prize, the Palme d’Or. These movies embrace Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” Lynne Ramsay’s “Die, My Love,” Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” Oliver Hermanus’ “The History of Sound,” Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha” and Jafar Panahi’s “A Simple Accident.”
Binoche will probably be main the jury that picks the Palme d’Or winner, together with jurors together with Halle Berry and Jeremy Sturdy. The competition closes Could 24.
Cannes is kicking off the identical day Gérard Depardieu, one in every of France’s most well-known actors, is to obtain a verdict in a intently watched sexual assault case. Depardieu, 76, has been accused of groping two ladies on the set of the 2022 movie “Les Volets Verts.”
In Cannes’ Un Sure Regard part, three outstanding actors are making their directorial debuts: Harris Dickinson (“Urchin”), Kristen Stewart (“The Chronology of Water”) and Scarlett Johansson (“Eleanor the Great”).
Geopolitics are prone to play a starring function at Cannes, which is starting by screening three 2025 Ukraine documentaries: “Zelensky,” Bernard-Henri Lévy’s “Notre Guerre” and The Related Press-Frontline coproduction “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” by “20 Days in Mariupol” Oscar-winner Mstyslav Chernov.
“This ‘Ukraine Day’ is a reminder of the commitment of artists, authors and journalists to tell the story of this conflict in the heart of Europe,” the competition mentioned in an announcement.
Cannes can even have a good time its opening by turning to an previous favourite. A restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” is to debut Tuesday, timed to the movie’s centenary.
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