Benjamin Jones
The Cannes Film Festival rarely passes without cacophony, but this year’s edition could be more raucous and unsettling than any edition in recent memory.
When the red carpet rolls out at the Palais des Festivals on Tuesday, the 77th edition of Cannes will unfold against a backdrop of war, protests, possible strikes and accelerating #MeToo unrest in France, which for years has largely resisted the movement.
Festival workers threaten to go on strike. The Israel-Hamas war, strongly felt in France, where Europe’s largest Jewish and Arab communities live, will certainly trigger protests. Russia’s war in Ukraine remains on the minds of many. Add to that the kinds of anxieties that can arise at Cannes – the always uncertain future of cinema, the rise of artificial intelligence – and this year’s festival shouldn’t be short on drama.
Being prepared for anything has always been a useful attitude at Cannes. Befitting such tumultuous times, the film’s schedule is full of intrigue, curiosity and question marks.
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, just days before his latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, premiered in competition at Cannes, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. The film remains on the Cannes schedule.
Probably the most feverishly anticipated entry is Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed work “Megalópolis.” Coppola is no stranger to high-profile Cannes drama. An unfinished version of “Apocalypse Now” won him (in a tie) his second Palme d’Or more than four decades ago.
Even the next US presidential elections will not be far away. The debut in the competition is “The Apprentice”, by Ali Abbasi, starring Sebastian Stan as the young Donald Trump. There will also be new films from Kevin Costner, Paolo Sorrentino, Sean Baker, Yorgos Lanthimos and Andrea Arnold. And for a potential Cannes powder keg, there’s also the firebomb of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” The film, an ongoing apocalyptic dystopia, takes director George Miller back to the festival he first fell in love with as a judge.
“I was hooked simply because it’s like film camp,” says Miller, who was enraptured by the global film gathering at Cannes and the immaculate film presentations. “It really is an ideal cinema. The moment they said, ‘OK, we’re happy to show this film here,’ I jumped at it.”
The official Cannes premiere on Tuesday is “The Second Act,” a French comedy from Quentin Dupieux starring Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon. During the opening ceremony, Meryl Streep will receive an honorary Palme d’Or. At the closing ceremony, George Lucas will also receive one.
But the spotlight at first may fall on Judith Godrèche. The French director and actor said earlier this year that filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager, accusations that rocked French cinema. Jacquot and Doillon denied the allegations.
While much of the French film industry had previously been reluctant to embrace the #MeToo movement, Godrèche provoked a broader response. She spoke passionately about the need for change at Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars, and before a French Senate committee.
During that same period, Godrèche also made the short film “Moi Aussi” during a meeting in Paris of hundreds of people who wrote their own stories of sexual abuse to her. On Wednesday, the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes opens.
“I hope to be heard in the sense that I’m not interested in being some kind of representation of someone who just wants to go after everyone in this industry,” Godrèche said before the festival. “I’m just fighting for some kind of change. It’s called a revolution.”
It’s the latest chapter in how #MeToo has had repercussions on the world’s biggest film gathering, following a protest by 82 women on the steps of the Palais in 2018 and a pledge of gender parity in 2019. Cannes has often been criticized for not inviting more women filmmakers in competition, but the festival gives its full support to Godrèche as it prepares for the possibility of more #MeToo revelations during the festival.
“For me, having these faces, these people – everyone in this film – gives them this place to be celebrated,” said Godrèche. “There’s one thing about this place that has a lot of history. In a way, it confuses cinema forever. Once your film was in Cannes, it was in Cannes.”
Some of the filmmakers heading to the festival this year are already firmly entrenched in Cannes tradition. Paul Schrader was at the festival nearly 50 years ago for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which he wrote. After a notoriously divisive response, he won the Palma in 1976.
“It was a different place. It was much more collegial and low-key,” Schrader said during a break from packing. “I remember very well sitting on the terrace at the Carlton with Marty and Sergio Leone and (Rainer Werner) Fassbender came over with his boyfriend and joined us. We were all talking and the sun was setting. the best thing in the world.'”
For the first time since his 1988 drama “Patty Hearst,” Schrader is back in what he calls “the top show” — in competition for the Palme d’Or — with “Oh, Canada.” The film, adapted from a Russell Banks novel, stars Richard Gere (reteaming with Schrader decades after “American Gigolo”) as a dying filmmaker telling his life story for a documentary. Jacob Elordi plays him in flashbacks to the 70s.
After the Cannes lineup was announced, Schrader shared on Facebook an old photo of himself, Coppola and Lucas — all prime figures in what was then called New Hollywood — and the caption “Together again.”
“I’ll be there at the same time as Francis. There’s a question of whether any of us will be invited back for the closing,” says Schrader, referring to when awardees are asked to stay for the closing ceremony. “I hope Francis or I can come back on closing night for George’s business.”
Who will finally go home with the Palm – the downside has already begun – will be decided by a jury led by Greta Gerwig, fresh from the huge success of “Barbie”. But this year’s list will have a lot to live up to. Last year, three possible best film nominees debuted at Cannes: Justine Triet’s Palme-winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” by Martin Scorsese.
What tends to really define Cannes, however, are the emerging filmmakers. Among those likely to make an impression this year is Julien Colonna, the Paris-based director and co-writer of “The Kingdom” of Corsica. The film, a highlight of Un Certain Regard, is a brutal coming-of-age story about a teenager (newcomer Ghjuvanna Benedetti) on the run with her father (Saveriu Santucci), a Corsican clan leader.
“We wanted to propose a kind of anti-mafia film,” says Colonna, referring to the prevalence of gangster dramas inspired by “The Godfather.” “As a viewer, I’m quite bored with it. I think we need to move on to something else and propose a different prism.”
“The Kingdom,” Colonna’s debut feature film, grew out of her own anxieties surrounding the birth of her son six years ago. It’s an entirely fictional film, but it has personal roots for Colonna, who was inspired by a memory of a camping trip that he realized years later was “a totally different subject for my father.” He filmed most of the film in Corsica, just a few kilometers from his hometown.
“This is where I grew up,” says Colonna, smiling. “This is where I learned to swim. The shower where her kiss takes place is the shower where I kissed for the first time.”
