From veterans like Richard Gere and Meryl Streep to rising stars Barry Keoghan and Anya Taylor-Joy: all generations of stars will meet at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, which opens on May 14 with strong competition.
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The world of cinema comes together until May 25, for an edition marked once again by a strong presence of the Hollywood industry on the Croisette, two months before the Paris Olympics.
After Scorsese and Harrison Ford last year, one of the most anticipated events is the presentation in competition of “Megalopolis”, by Francis Ford Coppola, 45 years after the shock “Apocalypse Now”, his second Palme d’Or.
This feature film with Adam Driver, of which a first trailer was unveiled on Saturday, promises to be a work of science fiction with crazy ambition, a testamentary film in the making for 40 years and which has swallowed up part of the fortune of the godfather of cinema.
Coppola will rub shoulders with other representatives of the greatest hours of American cinema: George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars” who will receive an honorary Palme d’Or, as will actress Meryl Streep.
The young guard of Hollywood is also expected: Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi, both noticed in “Saltburn”, each in a film in competition, or Margaret Qualley.
On the big show side, George Miller will make the engines of “Mad Max” roar out of competition with “Furiosa”, a prequel to his series of post-apocalyptic films.
Will Judith Godrèche come?
Among the hundred films presented in all sections, 22 are in competition for the Palme d’Or, won last year by Frenchwoman Justine Triet, with “Anatomy of a Fall”.
The jury will be chaired by American Greta Gerwig, 40, the first director to exceed a billion dollars in revenue with “Barbie”.
At his side, Omar Sy or the Native American actress Lily Gladstone revealed a year ago at Cannes in “Killers of the Flower Moon” by Martin Scorsese.
In competition, regulars like Jacques Audiard, with an unexpected musical comedy in Spanish in the world of drug traffickers, or David Cronenberg. Emma Stone reconnects with her favorite director Yorgos Lanthimos after her Oscar win for “Poor Creatures”.
As often, the Croisette will resonate with world news, particularly in competition, with a fiction about the young Donald Trump (“The Apprentice”) and the adaptation of “Limonov” by Emmanuel Carrère, signed by the Russian filmmaker in exile Kirill Serebrennikov.
Passing through the questions about the arrival of the Iranian Mohammed Rasoulof, in the running for the Palme but regularly prevented from traveling by the mullahs’ regime.
Gathered in Cannes, the film industry will continue to question the impact of artificial intelligence and new technologies on creation, six months after a historic strike in Hollywood, and as the Festival inaugurates a reality competition virtual (VR).
But also parity (only 20% of female directors in the official selection, according to the 50/50 collective), and sexist and sexual violence.
Seven years after the start of #MeToo, the subject remains on everyone’s minds, in the United States where one of Harvey Weinstein’s convictions has just been overturned, as in France, between the trial in October of Gérard Depardieu and the freedom of speech movement relaunched by Judith Godrèche.
An invitation to Cannes from the actress, who has become the spearhead of the movement in France since she accused two figures of auteur cinema, Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, of rape, to present the short film she just realized, would be a strong symbol.
Bringing together tens of thousands of festival-goers and global stars, Cannes will also be a security rehearsal for the authorities, two months before the Olympics.
The festivities will be launched Tuesday evening by actress Camille Cottin, before the launch of the opening film, “The Second Act” by Quentin Dupieux, with Léa Seydoux, which is released in theaters at the same time.
