Cannes Film Festival 2024 announced program

The program for the upcoming 77th Cannes Film Festival in May of this year has been announced. Comments on her Andrey Plakhov.

The competition consists of nineteen films, almost every one of which is backed by a well-known, most often high-profile director’s name. Among the participants there are those who are over 80 – Francis Ford Coppola (the film Megalopolis) and David Cronenberg (The Shroud). A little younger, but also veterans of the profession – Paul Schrader (“Oh Canada”) and Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Perez”). Among the debutants or relatively new names are the Swede Magnus von Horn (“Girl with a Needle”) and the Frenchwoman Agatha Redinger (“Wild Diamond”).

The core of the competition is made up of films by middle-generation authors who have a strong international reputation and are far from setting foot on the Croisette for the first time. This is the winner of last year’s Venice Festival, Yorgos Lanthimos (“Types of Kindness”) and the no less successful Paolo Sorrentino (“Partenope”). These are the exquisite Portuguese author Miguel Gomes (“The Grand Tour”) and Christophe Honoré (“My Marcello”), who is rightly considered not the least of the French directors. This is the famous Chinese Jia Zhangke (“Tide-Swept”). These are Brazilian Karim Ainuz (“Motel Destino”) and Englishwoman Andrea Arnold (“Bird”).

In the same category of festival favorites is Kirill Serebrennikov, whom Cannes has singled out among Russian directors in recent years.

However, his film “Limonov” is connected with Russia mainly through the figure of the main character, and was filmed as a co-production in Italy, France and Spain. Another “Russian trace” in the competition is noticeable in Sean Baker’s film “Anora”: Yura Borisov and Mark Eidelstein play in it.

Taking a quick look at the competition program, “The Apprentice” looks like one of the most intriguing films (not to be confused with Serebrennikov’s film, which participated in the Cannes program eight years ago). The biopic about Donald Trump was directed by Ali Abbasi, known for the very unusual films “On the Edge of Worlds” and “The Sacred Spider Killer.” There is reason to think that the director’s new work is like this – contrary to the dull canons of the biographical genre. The story is set in the early years of Trump’s business career and largely focuses on his relationship with Roy Cohn, a New York prosecutor known for his close ties to ultra-conservative Senator Joseph McCarthy during the witch hunt era. The film is being billed as a sarcastic “tale of mentor and protégé.”

In addition to the competition, the Cannes Film Festival offers a parallel and often surprise-laden Un Certain Regard, as well as a range of intriguing out-of-competition programs.

New works by the Frenchmen Leos Carax, Alain Guiraudie, Quentin Dupieux (his “Second Act” will open the festival) will be shown. There will be fewer big American films, partly as a result of the strikes sweeping Hollywood. Nevertheless, the premieres of the expected hits “Furiosa: The Mad Max Chronicles” by George Miller and “Horizons: An American Saga” by Kevin Costner will take place.

The premiere of “Invasion” by Sergei Loznitsa will take place in the special screenings section. Will the political signal that was heard loudly at Berlin and other festivals be strong this year in Cannes? In an interview with Variety, Cannes’ chief curator recalled the rich history of the festival, which has never turned its back on politics, awarding Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron about the Polish Solidarity movement and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which condemned the American invasion of Iraq. And when asked if we could see Israeli or Palestinian films in the official program, Fremaux diplomatically replied that “nothing prohibits this.”