A Look Ahead At Cannes Film Festival
Program, Headlines, and Thoughts from France's Premiere Film Festival
Welcome to this week’s Wednesday edition of The Backlot. These mid-week newsletters are reserved for deep dives of the latest filmmaking news, interviews with filmmakers, and episodic series on major issues affecting the industry.
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This week, we’re looking ahead at the legendary Cannes Film Festival, which starts on May 14th and runs through May 26th…
Here are our topics this week…
🎞️ Cannes Film Festival
🎬 Palme D’Or Race
🗞️ Weekly Movie News
Festival de Cannes - France’s Premiere Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, considered one of the “Big 5” alongside the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Venice Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Sundance Film Festival.
The festival takes place in Cannes, France, every year in the middle of May. This year’s event will run from May 14th to 25th.
The festival is one of the big signal points of the summer season and also marks the beginning of the Oscar race, as several premieres at the festival will often be lauded as contenders for the Academy Awards.
This year, the festival program includes several notable names, a few recognizable returns, and some major headlines sure to pique the interest of the filmmaking world.
The Headlines
Let’s start with the films themselves because several filmmakers are making their return to Cannes with highly anticipated new projects that are sure to be festival favorites.
The most talked about film gracing the festival’s screens is Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long endeavor about a large metropolis following a devastating natural disaster. Honestly, we know very little about the actual film itself, but the news about the production, financing, and distribution has been enough to generate a lot of talk about this project.
Coppola, the acclaimed director behind The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, famously sold his entire winery to help finance this project, pouring $120 million of his own funds into the film.
The premiere at Cannes will be the first public screening of the film and is sure to be the talk of the festival throughout the event.
Another film premiering at the festival that is sure to be the center of much controversy is Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice.
The film examines Donald Trump's real estate career in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. Trump is being portrayed by Sebastian Stan, well known for his role as Bucky in the Captain America films. In addition, the film features Maria Baklova as Ivana Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, the embattled lawyer who mentored the former president.
This will be the first premiere of the film, which currently has no scheduled release date after the festival, but will surely be released somewhere around November 4th.
Speaking of politics, Paul Schrader’s O’Canada will also premiere at the festival. The film stars Richard Gere as a tormented writer who fled to Canada to escape the Vietnam War draft. Alongside Gere, Jacob Elordi will play a younger version of the writer, with Uma Thurman and Micheal Imperioli also appearing in the film.
Sean Baker will also be returning to the Cannes Film Festival this year with his new film Anora. Baker is best known for his films The Florida Project and Red Rocket, which both premiered at the festival. Although there isn’t much known about Anora, the film is reported to be an adventurous romantic comedy about a sex worker in New York.
Finally, less than six months after the release of Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are returning with Kinds of Kindness. The anthology film will be the pairing’s fourth film together, after Poor Things, The Favourite, and the short film Bleat.
Kinds of Kindness will have a quick turnaround. It will premiere at the festival and compete for the Palme d’Or before premiering worldwide on June 21st.
A few other notable films at the festival include L’Amour Ouf, a French romantic comedy musical directed by Giles Lellouche starring Adèle Exarchopoulos. In addition, David Cronenberg, the famous body-horror director, will be premiering his new film The Shrouds.
The festival's big non-competition release is George Miller’s Furiosa, which will have its world premiere at the Croisette on May 15th, a week before the film opens in theaters worldwide.
Check out the full program and selections for the festival on their website here.
Industry at the Backdrop of the Festival
Cannes has a long history of protest and controversy. Over the last few years, we’ve seen demonstrators call for gender equity in cinema, protest war, shed light on domestic violence, and advocate for equal rights campaigns.
Last year, the acclaimed festival started off amidst the backdrop of nationwide government protests that extended into the event, including Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning speech.
In addition, last year saw Johnny Depp return to the silver screen with the premiere of Jeanne du Barry, which drew controversy because of his infamous trial with ex-wife Amber Heard.
This year, the protests are coming from within the community. A group of French film festival workers is planning demonstrations and striking activities at the festival to demand fair wages. According to Deadline, more than 200 individuals from several film festivals, including members of Cannes themselves, are preparing demonstrations during the event.
The group is being led by Sous Les Écrans La Dèche: Collectif Des Précaires Des Festivals De Cinéma, a union advocating for fair wages and better unemployment benefits for film festival workers in the country.
The film festival workers' potential strikes come less than a year after the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes in the United States. They also come at a time when IATSE and Teamsters are preparing for the next round of contract negotiations with Hollywood Studios, planning to discuss the combative issues of AI and residuals.
Let’s Talk About Megalopolis
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is probably the most anticipated premiere of the festival. The science fiction epic already has such a tumultuous history, and its inability to attract any acquisition from any major studio is puzzling. And frankly, a little bit concerning.
Thus far, several studio executives have reportedly passed on the project after a few screenings last month, calling the film “unmarketable.” Last week, it was reported the French indie film distributor behind Anatomy of a Fall was looking to acquire the project for worldwide distribution.
It’s still crazy to me that it’s been such a difficult process. I mean, we’re talking about one of the most famous filmmakers in history, whose films are considered among the greatest of all time.
Megalopolis also has an outrageous cast, including Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LeBouef, Nathalie Emanneul, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, and Giancarlo Esposito.
It is true, though, that Coppola has a history of taking big swings and making very big misses. He famously had to sell Zoetrope Studios after the release of his project One From the Heart, which made roughly $626,000 on a $26 million budget.
Still, it’s absolutely incredible that this film is having such a hard time finding a home, and very few studios are willing to take on the risk. This means either - A - it’s a really bad movie - or B - the reported large marketing budget Coppola is asking for the film has been enough to scare everyone away.
It’ll be interesting to see how this film is received at Cannes. Will audiences celebrate the return of one of our greatest directors? Or will we witness a historic end to one of the most prolific and tumultuous careers in cinema's history?
Either way, putting up $120 million for your own passion project, Francis Ford Coppola is an absolute legend in my book
The Palme d’Or Goes To…
Francis Ford Coppola is among a select group of individuals who have won the Palme d’Or multiple times, including Billie August, Ken Loach, and Ruben Ostlund. Coppola won for The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979).
The Palme d’Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, is often considered one of the most prestigious awards in filmmaking. Although the award hasn’t historically always been a precursor for the Oscars, with the increasingly international body of voters at The Academy, the coveted award seems to be more important now than ever before.
Three of the last four Palme d’Or winners have been nominated for Best Picture (Anatomy Of A Fall, Triangle of Sadness, and Parasite). Of course, Parasite also went on to win Best Picture.
This year, with films such as Kinds of Kindness, Anora, and Megalopolis competing for the prize, it will be interesting to see which film takes home the award.
Roger Ebert ranked the top twenty a few weeks ago and actually put David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds at the top spot, which is interesting given the nature of many of his films. Still, the Canadian director is a festival favorite and is more than due for his shot at winning the coveted prize.
Another interesting potential winner to watch will be Andrea Arnold’s Bird, which stars Barry Keoghan. Although not quite as well-known a director as the ones listed above, Arnold has won several jury prizes at the festival.
In addition, there have been only three women to win the Palme d’Or in its history. A win for her would put her in a very small group that includes Justine Triet, Jane Campion, and Julia Ducournau.
The prize is scheduled to be announced on May 22nd, at the end of the festival. Take a look at Roger Ebert’s top twenty rankings here to learn more about the predictions.
News from the Industry
Teamsters and IATSE will meet with Hollywood Studios to discuss issues with AI, fair wages, and residuals, prompting discussions for a new contract to try and avoid another industry shutdown in the coming months.
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron will be released on July 9th on physical 4K and Blu-Ray, making it the first 4K physical release of a Studio Ghibli movie.
Slamdance Film Festival, the indie film festival that focuses on emerging artists, will move from Park City to Los Angeles in 2025. The move marks the second film to announce its departure (or potential) from Park City after Sundance announced it was looking for a new location last month.
The Fall Guy opens in theaters this week, and the stars are being joined on the red carpet by various stunt performers who are flying through banners, fighting in boxes, and jumping onto the stage from two-story balconies.
The CEO of Paramount Global, the famous Hollywood film studio, has stepped down from his role, just days before the company starts negotiations with SkyDance Media. Bob Bakish leaves the company with an “Office of the CEO” trio of executives running operations.
Barry Jenkins, the acclaimed director behind Moonlight, has released the trailer for the new Mufasa film, which chronicles the story of the famous character as a prequel to the 2019 Lion King.
On Sunday, we’ll be discussing …
🎞️ Five Things I’ve Learned From Freelancing
🎬 Community Thoughts and Open Discussion
🗞️ Weekly Movie Recommendations