Cannes 2024

[dws1982]

Quentin Dupieux's The Second Act is the opening film for Cannes. A lot of people didn't know this film even existed until this announcement, because it was shot in January. This may or may not be in competition; the opening film can go either way. Dupieux has never been in competition before, for what it's worth, despite being very prolific.

The Joshua Oppenheimer film and Lucretia Martel film are both reportedly being held for the fall.

Megalopolis is finished, as we've seen from those screening reports, but there seems to be reluctance to take it to Cannes without distribution. (Unsure if this is referring to U.S. distribution, which is not necessary for a Cannes spot, or French distribution, which is.)

Emmanuelle may not be finished in time.

Jia Zhangke's new film seems to be finished, but there is speculation that Cannes may not take it for the main competition, which might mean that he would hold it for Venice.

[Mister Tee]

I don't have time for extensive comment, but I thank dws for this fully-researched, greatly informative post.

[Big Magilla]

Megalopolis screened this morning at the Universal Citywalk IMAX theatre to an audience of roughly 300 industry elites including all the studio chiefs, Al Pacino, and Roger Corman. The response was said to be quite positive, exciting, and emotional.

One of the attendees was quoted as saying “It’s a startling film….a very enveloping film, but also highly visual in a ’60s experimental way. It felt like Francis’s youth was returning to him and pouring through his heart at age 85….the kind of independent cinema that he grew up on….it’s a wonderful, larger-than-life, jumps-off-the-screen movie and in a totally personal way….constantly entertaining….it’s not like any movie that’s out there, I can tell you that…avant garde experimental."

[danfrank]

Thanks, that’s quite the thorough preview. Where do you get your information about stages of production? IMDB only has pre-, in, and post- categories with no details.

[dws1982]

Cannes 2024 (this is long) Preview

...this is long (hopefully not too full of typos)...

I sometimes think, what if Damien Chazelle had premiered Babylon at Cannes? 15-20 years ago, he might have done just that. Babylon may not have been 100% finished in time, but it was conducting test screenings in the late Winter and early Spring of 2022. Premiering in a place more open to the wild swings that Babylon takes, I wonder how different its trajectory might have been. Babylon would’ve been more in line with a thing that’s now a bit of a relic: the American film that kind of does a trial run at Cannes several months before its Oscar-hopeful run. But like I said, this movie is dying out a bit.

American movies in Cannes tend to fall under a few categories, specifically:
1) Movies by people with a Cannes history
2) Movies by filmmakers whose profile is on the rise
3) Movies by big name auteurs
4) Studio/prestige films about to be released in the U.S.
5) Studio/prestige films with Oscar ambitions
6) Studio/prestige films that have already been released in the U.S. and are making their international/Europeans debut

It goes without saying that these categories do have considerable overlap: The Coens, at various points, have had films at Cannes that fit all of these categories. They were big name auteurs, had a Cannes history, and had a film recently released in the U.S. in 1996 when they took Fargo to Cannes. There were Oscar ambitions for No Country for Old Men when it played Cannes before its fall 2007 release.

The last three categories have fallen off over the years.

Movies that are about to be released in the U.S. still go to the festival but are now more likely to show up in Out of Competition spots—Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge was a competition title in 2001, while 21 years later, Elvis was shown out of competition. (Both were released within a month of the festival.) It’s not fully dead—just last year Asteroid City played in competition a few weeks before its commercial release—but the days of a big studio play (e.g., the first two Shrek films) playing in competition does seem to be mostly a thing of the past.

Movies with Oscar ambitions are much more likely to be held for a fall rollout, often at Venice, rather than play Cannes and sit for six months. Even the most recent Coen film, which was finished in time for Cannes 2021, rolled out at fall festivals—it premiered at New York after it had been rejected for a slot at Venice. Established names may still elect to show their film there, but in general, the idea of Cannes as a testing ground for fall releases—which it arguably was for films ranging from L.A. Confidential to About Schmidt to Fair Game—is not really happening as much. Again, it’s not fully dead; James Gray’s Armageddon Time played Cannes before its fall release, and I’m sure Focus was worried it could fall through the cracks at fall festivals and hoped it might build momentum from Cannes. But Gray is also a Cannes regular and has launched four of his previous films there. (And unfortunately, none of them get a ton of momentum from their Cannes rollouts.)

I think Netflix positioning itself as A) an Oscar player; and B) a home for big-name auteurs to do dream projects may have had something to do with this shift. Netflix has to skip Cannes, based on the laws and policies around what can and can’t play Cannes, but this isn’t an issue with Venice. But in general, I think the world just moves much differently than it did even ten years ago, and American studios and filmmakers are not willing to sit on a movie for months after Cannes. Another issue with this is perception: A movie that plays Cannes and doesn’t win anything may be seen as a failure or disappointment. I disagree that this is a big issue and think that No Country for Old Men and L.A. Confidential are two cases in point that a movie can do fine even if it doesn’t win awards at Cannes. But the perception does seem to be there: I have mentioned before that 12 Years a Slave was completed (or could have been completed) in time for Cannes 2013, but that someone—whether it was the producers, studio, or Steve McQueen, I’m not sure—didn’t want it to come to the U.S. with the label of disappointment if it didn’t win anything, or didn’t get a great reception at Cannes. I think that with Spielberg as president of that jury, if it’s in the competition, it’s probably your Palme d’Or winner that year. Little Women is another that was completed in time for Cannes 2019 but was never submitted. (Gerwig’s son was born right around that time, so presumably she didn’t want to travel and do the festival thing anyway. And while I’m sure it would’ve gotten good reviews, I don’t think it would’ve won much at that Cannes.)

The last category in particular is almost entirely dead. The idea that a movie would be released in the U.S. and then sit for months, not being seen in most of the world, before premiering at Cannes just doesn’t happen anymore. The world moves too fast now. This category has been mostly dead for 15 or so years (Zodiac was one of the last already-released movies to go to Cannes), but with movies now going to streaming within weeks of their release, I don’t think we’ll see this much anymore.

The movies that become Oscar players from Cannes are the international hits, for the most part, often not widely discussed or anticipated before they premiere. Parasite was not seen as an Oscar player going into Cannes 2019; no one had seen it, and Bong Joon-ho had no Oscar history, and his films were not seen as Oscar’s “thing”. Similarly, Anatomy of a Fall, before Cannes, looked like one of several French films that play the festival every year to varying degrees of notice. And now it’s an Oscar winner.

Now, on to what we might see at Cannes this year:

Previous Winners:
A lot of previous winners (Nanni Moretti, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Nuri Bilge Ceylan) were at Cannes last year, and many others were there the year before (Dardennes, Ruben Ostlund) are in between projects or simply don’t have a completed project. Others have either fallen out of favor or mostly quit working (see the 2002-04 trio of Roman Polanski, Gus van Sant, and Michael Moore). All to say, this bench isn’t terribly deep this year.

It's weird to talk about distributors here but NEON has distributed the last four Palme d’Or winners. Additionally, they distributed the film that won the Best Actor prize last year, the 2021 Jury Prize winner, the 2021 Best Actress winner and multiple other winners at Cannes and Venice. (Not a ton of Berlin winners, because that festival has fallen off in a major way over the past decade or two.) Worth noting here that two of those winners (Parasite and Titane) were already in NEON’s hands before they went to Cannes, and the other two were picked up at the festival, but either way, this is a studio that is showing a remarkable instinct for what is going to hit at Cannes, and has done a great job translating those films over to mainstream success in the United States. Even Titane, the least successful commercially of that quartet, got a lot more eyes than it would have if IFC or Magnolia had picked it up. Obviously, this doesn’t mean they will have the 2024 winner, but it does mean that we need to keep an eye on the films they have going into the festival (and there are a few already), and the films they acquire there.

Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez is deep in post-production (possibly complete) and will probably end up at Cannes, as many of his previous films have.

Mike Leigh has another film, reuniting with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, called Hard Truths. Leigh has been open about the difficulty he has had in getting financing in recent year and has said that he isn’t sure if he’ll be able to make another film. If it is finished, I would think that a Cannes premiere would be a good bet, but you never know: Cannes infamously rejected both Peterloo and Vera Drake.

Assuming Megalopolis is completed in time a Cannes premiere would be a big get for Coppola and Cannes. There have been varying reports on this: some reports have said it isn’t finished and isn’t likely to be finished in time, while others have said it is finished and is holding private screenings in the coming weeks. But if it’s finished, I would expect to see it show up. Whereas Scorsese declined to submit Killers of the Flower Moon for a competition slot last year, in the past Coppola refused to take Apocalypse Now to Cannes until they gave it a competition slot. But he is older and more laid back now so I’m not sure if he will insist on a competition spot.

Now, to “worth mentioning but won’t happen”-land…

Lars Von Trier has not been in competition since his infamous remarks about Hitler at the 2011 festival. He has made what seems to be an anthology of several short films, called Etudes. Given his recent health issues, I wouldn’t be at all surprised for it to show up, assuming it’s completed (and I have no evidence that it is), although I think it would more likely be in an out of competition spot.

Last I heard about Abdellatif Kechiche was that after he decided to split the second Mektoub film into two films, (Intermezzo and Canto Duo), his financiers withdrew funding due to Kechiche violating the terms of the agreement, which called for a trilogy, not a tetralogy. Canto Duo had been shot at that point but was unable to finish post-production. Kechiche has also claimed that there is a conspiracy between actress Ophelie Bau and the French media to destroy his career. Given the reception that Intermezzo got, it took years to find financing to finish Canto Duo, but he apparently did finish it last year. French distribution is a prerequisite for Cannes competition slots, but given the controversy around Kechiche, anything he makes might struggle to get distribution, and even if it did get distribution, Cannes might still decline it. (Intermezzo had it, obviously, but after its reception, the distributor decided not to release it.)

Malick’s The Way of the Wind is reportedly set to do final sound mixing around August, which would rule it out for Cannes, Venice, and 2024 in general. Lead actor Geza Rohrig has said that it is planned for Cannes 2025.

I’m not sure what’s happening with Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey-17. It was supposed to be a March release, then moved to January 2025 without, as of yet, any announced qualifying run. There’s a major shroud of secrecy here that extends beyond not the movie spoiled. Was the delay just because the strikes forced studios to reshuffle some things, or was it necessary because the strike postponed reshoots and post-production work that would need to be completed? Warner has reportedly test-screened it several times. At any rate, it won’t be at Cannes.


Good Bets:
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is following a similar pipeline to Mad Max: Fury Road with its late May release, and the only real question in my opinion is whether it will be in competition or not. I would lean towards “not”, but you never know.

Michel Franco, who directed Memory, which won the acting prize at Venice last year for Peter Sarsgaard, has a new film called Dreams that seems to be in post-production. His last two films were Venice plays, while the two before were Cannes.

Searchlight is releasing Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, which was mostly shot while the visual effects for Poor Things were being completed, in late June which lines up perfectly with a Cannes premiere.

Andrea Arnold has premiered three of her four previous features at Cannes and won Jury Prizes for each. Her latest, Bird, played for distributors at the European Film Market during Berlin, and is probably a safe bet for a competition slot. It stars Barry Keoghan and Franz Ragowski.

David Cronenberg has premiered a lot of films, including his last three, at Cannes, and The Shrouds, based on production times, will probably be finished in time. He can reunite with Coppola, who, when Crash won the Jury Prize in 1996, made it clear that he was not supportive of the choice.

Arnaud Depleschin doesn’t always show up in the main competition, but he does usually show up somewhere at Cannes, so his film Spectateurs! should be there.

Sean Baker’s Anora was filmed in early 2023, so it is probably finished by now, and he is a very popular name in indie circles, both in the U.S. and abroad. I would expect a competition slot. This is one of a few films at the festival that NEON is already behind.

Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch played Cannes a few years back, and she even has a relationship to the festival before that, so I think her new film On Becoming a Guinea Fowl will show up somewhere, maybe in competition, maybe in something like Un Certain Regard.

Audrey Diwan has an adaptation of the French novel Emmanuelle, which we mostly know as a 1974 film that had several porny knockoffs/sequels, that may be finished. She won at Venice in 2021 for Happening and may hold Emmanuelle for that. NEON is reportedly distributing this.

Christophe Honore has premiered several films at Cannes—although only twice in competition—so his new film, Marcello Mio, which stars longtime Cannes regular Catherine Deneuve, is probably a good bet.

Francois Ozon works all the time, in about every genre you can think of, so you will not be surprised to see that he has another film coming this year, called When Fall is Coming. Last year it was a (supposedly good) crime comedy, before that it was a string of decently received dramas. From the very short synopsis I saw of this, it appears to be in crime/thriller land, and while those don’t always mean Cannes competition spots, Ozon’s Double Lovers, one of the trashier, pulpier films of his career, played in competition in 2017. That he can occasionally turn out a film like By the Grace of God (a prize winner in Berlin) makes him worth keeping an eye on.

Miguel Gomes is a Portugese filmmaker who made several acclaimed films over the past decade-plus, so I would expect his upcoming film, Grand Tour to have a really good shot at a competition slot.

Kiril Serebennikov is one of the few working Russian filmmakers who has not bent the knee to Putin, and for his trouble has been forced to make his latest two films abroad. Liminov: The Ballad of Eddie was to be Pawel Pawlikowski’s follow-up to Cold War, but Pawlikowski left the project, although he still retains a writing credit. Serebennikov is a Cannes regular—although his films have not been very widely acclaimed there—so I would expect this to be in the main lineup. He also has a film called Disappearance, starring August Diehl as Josef Mengele hiding in the jungles of South America. I’m not sure if that one is completed yet—the sources I’ve looked at are very mixed on this—and if both are completed, I’m not sure which one would be in a Cannes spot. But he'll probably be at Cannes in some capacity.

Joshua Oppneheimer (The Act of Killing) has made his first narrative feature, The End, an “apocalyptic musical”. His last two films were at other festivals (Berlin and Venice, respectively), but if it’s finished, I think it’s a decent bet. Another NEON film!

Possibilities:
Clint Eastwood has been at Cannes several times, last in 2008, and the “his last film” talk around Juror No. 2 has it more highly anticipated than many of his more recent films. It doesn’t have a release date, but it is probably finished and could be released sometime summer or early fall.

Paul Schrader was at Cannes a couple of times in the 80’s and took his last three to Venice. Oh, Canada may be finished already, and with the “maybe his last film” talk, it will have a heightened air of anticipation that could bump it into the Cannes lineup.

Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice was filmed in January, but some outlets are reporting that it has been submitted to Cannes. That’s an insanely fast turnaround—even Eastwood in his prime wasn’t that fast—so I am a bit skeptical on that basis.

Martin Scorsese has produced an Argentina film called The Freshly Cut Grass which starts Marina de Tavira from Roma and is produced by the same company that produced Argentina 1985 from a couple of years ago.

Ken Loach, speaking of a director in a producer role: Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Middle Ages drama Harvest, which is produced through Loach’s company Sixteen Films, will be submitted. It stars Caleb Landry-Jones.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa has only been in competition once, for one of his least-known films, but he often shows up sidebar lineups, and could this year with Serpent’s Path, which is a French-language remake of his 1998 film, also called Serpent’s Path.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who wrote She Said, Ida, and was involved with Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, has a directorial debut called Hot Milk, starring Vicky Krieps that will most likely be at a festival this year. Maybe Venice though?

Sean Robert Dunn is not a name you are likely to have heard of, but he has had various short films on the festival circuits for several years now. His feature debut, The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford has big production companies behind it, so I think it might make a debut at Cannes, although there is very little information about the film in terms of plot, or even in terms of whether it’s finished production.

Marjane Satrapi has not made anything that anyone has talked about (or, for the most part, watched) since Persepolis, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect Paris Paradis to show up, but it’s at least a possibility.

Paolo Sorrentino has a new film, Parthenope, which features Gary Oldman. His last film was at Venice, but he’s had six before it that were at Cannes.

Sophie Fillieres was a French actress, writer, and director. She was featured in a small role in Anatomy of a Fall last year. She died soon after she finished shooting what would’ve been her fourth feature film, and her children have spent much of the last year working to finish post-production. None of her previous films were big festival types, but there is a story behind this one that may be appealing.

No Chains, No Masters is a French film set in Mauritania during the era of colonial slave trade. Its director Simon Moutairou has been screenwriter on several popular French films.

One submitted film is from Paolo Sorrentino protégé, Gianluca Jodice. It is called Le Deluge, about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the days leading up to their execution.

My Driver and I is a rare Saudi film, one of the first that could get international recognition since the cinema ban ended, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it show up.

A little more than 30 years ago, Gabriele Salvatores made Mediterraneo, one of those obscure movies that won the Foreign Film Oscar under the “must see all five” rule, when distributors (Miramax in this case) would often try to rig the results by making their film hard to see, which would narrow the voting pool, mostly to older members. He has not made any other films that have gotten any significant notice in the U.S. Napoli New York is an Italian film about post-WWII immigration. This is based on a film treatment that Fellini wrote, so it will get some attention on that basis.

Could Show Up, But Probably Not in Competition:
The first part of Kevin Costner’s Horizon releases in late June, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Warner premiere it at Cannes, especially as a way of building up good critical buzz.

Leos Carax should be a sure bet for a competition spot, but his new film, It’s Not Me, is reportedly more of a short, and more of an essay film than a narrative or traditional documentary. But if it’s ready, it will probably at least be shown.

A French-language adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo is due for release in France in late June, so a Cannes screening would not be a surprise.

Harmony Korine has a new film called Baby Invasion, but I would guess that he is more likely for something like Director’s Fortnight than main competition.

Inside Out screened out of competition in 2015, so Inside Out 2 may possibly do the same.

???
Jia Zhangke is a Cannes regular, but I’m not sure what the status of his next project is. IMDB doesn’t even have a listing for it, although other sources say it is in post-production.

Lucrecia Martel has done Cannes once in the past, but Zama raised her profile—although maybe it’s fallen off in the seven years since then. She has a documentary, supposedly long in the making, about an environmental activist, but it may not be finished yet.

Michiel Hazanvicius has such a weird career arc: wins an Oscar for Best Director, follows it up with an English-language film that was so disliked that it never was even distributed in the U.S. He is probably always going to have a shot at Cannes; even his zombie comedy played there (albeit not in competition) a couple of years back. But I haven't been able to find out if his upcoming film, reportedly an animated film dealing with the Holocaust, is going to be finished in time.

Probably Not:
Last year, Thierry Fremaux said that Steve McQueen’s Blitz would hopefully be at Cannes this year. It has been test-screened, but Apple seems to be looking towards fall festivals instead of Cannes.

Pablo Larrain has only done Cannes once, so I would think that his Maria Callas film, starring Angelina Jolie, would be more likely for Venice, especially if its producers want to position it as an Oscar play.

Definitely Not:
Carlos Reygadas is a Cannes mainstay, but he is reportedly still shooting his next film in Poland.