The lineup for this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been announced, ushering in a slew of highly awaited films like Wes Anderson’s delayed The French Dispatch and Leos Carax’s Annette, a double-header starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. This year’s festival, making a grand return after it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, will also see new offerings from Mia Hansen-Løve (Bergman Island), Asghar Farhadi (A Hero), and Sean Baker (Red Rocket), all in competition for the Palme d’Or.
Some of the other films in competition include Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven, and Flag Day by Sean Penn. Andrea Arnold will premiere her latest film, Cow, in the festival’s new category Cannes Premiere, as will Hong Sang-soo with his latest, In Front of Your Face. Out of competition, Todd Haynes will debut The Velvet Underground, a documentary about the titular rock band.
Anderson’s The French Dispatch is among the more hotly anticipated titles in the lineup. The film was supposed to be released in 2020, but was pushed back after the pandemic torched the traditional festival and awards season circuit, closing up movie theaters in the process. The film—which, per teasers and trailers looks to be a classical Anderson quirkfest—stars Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Benicio del Toro, Tilda Swinton, and more, telling the story of a fictional New Yorker-style magazine in a fictional French city.
Four of the 24 films in competition this year are helmed by women, including Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, Ildiko Enyedi’s The Story Of My Wife, Julia Ducournau’s Titane, and Catherine Corsini’s La Fracture. The 2019 lineup also included four films directed by women, though there were only 21 films in competition at that time. Across the festival’s overall Official Selection, however, there are 28 films helmed by women, per Deadline, a step forward for gender parity for Cannes.
Spike Lee, who was tapped to be the jury president for the 2020 festival, will preside over the jury this year. The jury is also set to present Jodie Foster with an honorary Palme d’Or, in addition to making the Oscar-winning actor the guest of honor at the opening night ceremony. Foster has a rich history at Cannes, first attending the festival when she was 13 years old for the 1976 premiere of Taxi Driver, which won the festival’s top honor.
Safety precautions are in place for Cannes this year, including mandatory masks for attendees inside auditoriums and a cap on audience capacity. Cannes president Thierry Fremaux long vowed to forge ahead this year in order to make up for last year’s loss, pushing the festival from its traditional May slot to July. The opening of the festival, a gilded affair famous for its glamorous red carpets and general hauteur, could mark a return to much-desired form, ushering a return to normalcy after a difficult year for the film world.
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