Eddington by Ari Aster Official Selection – In competition
Ever since we’ve seen his films, we’ve been wary of telephone poles, Swedish celebrations and attics. This list is likely to get longer with Eddington. It is the fourth feature film from the director, who made his breakthrough with Hereditary in 2018. The film is set in May 2020 (remind you of anything?) in a small town in New Mexico where ‘a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg, as neighbour is pitted against neighbour’. For his first selection at Cannes, Ari Aster reunites with Joaquin Phoenix (Beau Is Afraid, 2023) and directs Austin Butler, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone for the first time.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Ari Aster : « J’ai toujours vu la famille comme une espèce de trou noir »
Alpha by Julia Ducournau Official Selection – In competition
After the brilliant and terrifying Titane, winner of the 2021 Palme d’Or, French director Julia Ducournau makes her comeback with this science fiction film. It tells the story of a 13-year-old girl, Alpha (Mélissa Boros), who finds herself in a fictional city that looks like New York in the 80’s. This is according to information the filmmaker had shared during her residency at the Villa Albertine. The feature will address the AIDS epidemic through one of Alpha’s parents, who is affected by the disease. Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim star in this highly anticipated genre film that promises to be both ambitious and political.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Julia Ducournau : « Je voulais faire sentir que la féminité est une forme d’hybridité »
La Petite Dernière by Hafsia Herzi Official Selection – In competition
With the magnificent You Deserve a Lover (2019) and Good Mother (Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2021), Hafsia Herzi has proven that she is as good a director as she is an actress. For her third feature film, she has adapted Fatima Daas’s debut novel, La Petite Dernière (2020). This is an autofiction in which the French writer of Algerian origin examines her relationship with Islam in the light of the discovery of her own homosexuality. The title role is played by young Nadia Melliti, her first role, alongside Park Ji-Min and Louis Memmi, whom we’d already spotted.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Hafsia Herzi : « Il ne faut pas négliger la force des sentiments d’un enfant »
The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho Official Selection – In competition
Winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes in 2019 for his fantastic Bacurau and author of two feature films we love, Neighbouring Sounds (2014) and Aquarius (2016), the Brazilian filmmaker is highly anticipated with this political thriller set in 1977. It follows the escape of a tech expert who takes refuge in Recife during carnival week. Brazilian film star Wagner Moura plays the lead, the iconic face of the series Narcos (in which he plays drug lord Pablo Escobar), and also seen in Alex Garland’s Civil War (2024).
● ● READ MORE ● ● Kleber Mendonça Filho : « Le film d’archives est une immersion profonde dans le temps »
Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll Official Selection – In competition
The Night of the 12th, an investigation into the real-life murder of a women, waspresented at Cannes in 2022 andleft a lasting impression. Let’s hope that Dominik Moll’s new film (his first to be included in Competition since Harry, He’s Here to Help in 2000), Dossier 137, will shake us up just as much as his previous one. Starring Léa Drucker, this thriller follows an investigator from the IGPN, the police force in charge of investigating the police, in a case that is seemingly like any other, but which turns out to be very different.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Dominik Moll : « Il est très étrange que ce soient les hommes qui tuent mais aussi qui enquêtent »
The Mastermind de Kelly Reichardt ● Sélection officielle – Compétition
Après Showing Up, présenté en Compétition officielle en 2022, qui explorait les affres d’une créatrice, la réalisatrice américaine est de retour avec ce film aux contours troubles. On sait seulement qu’il raconte la vie d’un artiste préparant le vol d’œuvres d’art durant la guerre du Vietnam, et surtout qu’il réunit Josh O’Connor, la chanteuse Alana Haim, révélée au cinéma dans Licorice Pizza de Paul Thomas Anderson (2022), et John Magaro, que Kelly Reichardt avait déjà fait tourner dans First Cow (2021) et Showing Up.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Kelly Reichardt : « On est passé d’un monde de canoës à un monde de porte-conteneurs »
Sound of Falling by Mascha Schilinski Official Selection – In competition
She directed the beautiful and toxic Dark Blue Girl, presented at the Berlinale in 2017 but never released in France, which takes the perspective of a seven-year-old girl whose world shatters when her parents get back together. German director Mascha Schilinski makes a surprise entry into the Official Competition with Sound of Falling. The film is presented as an ambitious, epic portrayal spanning a century. It follows four girls from different generations who live in the same house in the German countryside. The pitch promises a beautiful story of sisterhood, perhaps haunted by ghosts.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Cannes 2025 : « Sound of Falling » de Mascha Schilinski : c’est quoi ce film allemand précédé d’une énorme hype ?
Romería by Carla Simón Official Selection – In competition
After the heart-wrenching Summer 1993 (2017) and Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlinale, the talented Catalan director completes her autobiographical family trilogy with Romería, which explores a pivotal moment in her own adolescence. The film tells the story of an orphan returning to her parent’s homeland, both of whom died of HIV-related illnesses when she was very young. Guided by her mother’s diary, she explores a side of her paternal family she never knew, confronting secrets, unspoken truths and shame. Given Carla Simón’s talent, we’re already preparing the handkerchiefs.
Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier
Official Selection – In competition
Following the captivating The Worst Person in the World (2021), for which Renate Reinsve won the Best Actress at Cannes, the talented Norwegian filmmaker (Oslo, August 31st, Thelma) returns with what promises to be another powerful comedy of manners. Sentimental Value is the story of a father, a famous film director who has been forgotten, and who reconnects with his daughters (one of whom is played by Renate Reinsve) following the death of their mother. Given Joachim Trier’s knack for filming artistic and intellectual circles and exposing their neuroses, Sentimental Value looks set to be a promising film, halfway between satire and domestic drama.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Joachim Trier : « Je suis toujours ému par ces gens qui se rendent compte que leur temps est passé »
Eleanor the Great by Scarlett Johansson Official Selection – Un Certain Regard
After These Vagabond Shoes, a low-budget short film about a New Yorker in search of a famous hot dog, which she directed in 2009, Scarlett Johansson moves on to feature films with Eleanor the Great. The American actress tells the story of Eleanor Morgenstein, a 90-year-old woman trying to rebuild her life in New York after the death of her best friend and decades of living in Florida. We can’t wait to see this mysterious female portrait, brought to life by actors June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Hecht.
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk by Sepideh Farsi ACID
Following her beautiful animated feature film The Siren (2023), Iranian director Sepideh Farsi returns with this documentary selected for ACID. The film follows a year of virtual exchanges between the director and Fatima Hassouna, a 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist documenting the daily lives of civilians in Gaza since October 2023. The sudden death of this young woman, killed by an Israeli missile on the 16th of April, undoubtedly gives this intensely political work a powerful resonance.
Tell Her I Love Her by Romane Bohringer Official selection – Special screenings
In her book of the same name, published in 2019, MP Clémentine Autain writes about the loss of her mother, actress Dominique Laffin, when she was 12 years old. This story resonates with that of Romane Bohringer, whose mother left when she was just nine months old and was then raised by her father, actor Richard Bohringer. This adaptation of Clémentine Autain’s book is an opportunity for the filmmaker to once again explore the idea of family and the threat of its loss, which was already at the heart of her comedy L’Amour Flou (2018), co-directed with her ex-partner Philippe Rebbot.
Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 by Raoul Peck Official Selection – Cannes Premiere
Last year, the Haitian filmmaker, whose powerful documentaries delighted us, presented as part of the Special Screenings, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (which won the Golden Eye award alongside The Brink of Dream by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir). A regular at the Festival, Raoul Peck tackles the visionary British writer George Orwell, who wrote the dystopian masterpiece 1984 (published in 1949), which is still widely talked about today. In Peck’s capable hands, one can imagine a biographical exploration that is concise, sensitive and inevitably political.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Raoul Peck : « Faire parler Cole, c’était lui redonner le pouvoir sur sa propre histoire »
A Private Life by Rebecca Zlotowski Official Selection – Out of Competition
In this film shot between Paris and Normandy, the brilliant director of An Easy Girl (2019) and Other People’s Children (2022), worthy successor of Claude Sautet, tells the story of a well-known psychiatrist who, faced with the sudden death of one of her patients, becomes convinced that it was murder and decides to investigate. It promises to be one hell of a whirlwind of a drama. To top it all off, the director has cast Virginie Efira and Daniel Auteuil, along with Jodie Foster in the lead role. We can’t wait to see the influence of the French-loving American star – whom we adore – in Rebecca Zlotowski’s film.
● ● À LIRE AUSSI ● ● Rebecca Zlotowski : « Je suis très libérale sur les questions sentimentales et familiales. »
Enzo by Laurent Cantet, directed by Robin Campillo Directors’ Fortnight – Opening Film
Laurent Cantet, who passed away in April 2024, left the direction of his film to his friend and long-time collaborator Robin Campillo. Always very sensitive to young people and their aspirations, the director of the 2008’s Palme d’Or winner The Class had imagined the story of a 16-year-old bricklayer apprentice (played by Eloy Pohu, one of our ‘25 under 25’ revelations in our winter cover story) who rebels against his bourgeois family, set against the backdrop of the former shipyard of La Ciotat, on the Mediterranean coast.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Robin Campillo : « Je voulais convaincre de la puissance politique de la parole »
Her Will Be Done by Julia Kowalski Directors‘ Fortnight
Following her first feature film Raging Rose (2016) and her medium-length film J’ai vu le Visage du Diable, which was screened at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2023 and won the Jean Vigo Prize the same year, the French filmmaker of Polish origin invites actresses Maria Wróbel and Roxane Mesquida to star in her second feature film. Her Will Be Done follows a young girl who lives on the family farm and who is hiding a secret: ‘a monstrous power, which she believes she inherited from her late mother, awakens every time she feels desire.’ When a ‘free and scandalous’ woman returns to the village, her powers awaken and she loses control. We are already trembling with both fear and pleasure.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Julia Kowalski : « J’avais l’impression que les prêtres allaient repérer en moi un démon, que j’allais finir exorcisée ! »
Kika by Alexe Poukine Critics’ Week – In competition
We’d discovered her in 2022 with her brilliant That Which Does Not Kill, in which she combined documentary and fiction to subtly tackle the theme of rape from all angles. Her latest documentary Sauve qui Peut, which explores the hospital world, blew us away. We are therefore delighted to see the French director’s first fiction film, Kika, in Competition as part of the Critics’ Week. The film is about a pregnant woman who is totally broke and trying to cope with the sudden death of her partner. We expect it to be a subtle and powerful story, one that will cement her status as a filmmaker who matters.
Sorry, Baby by Eva Victor Directors’ Fortnight – closing film
In this first feature, which won the Screenwriting Award at Sundance earlier this year, American writer and director Eva Victor plays a university professor caught up in the turmoil of life after being sexually assaulted. The film spans over a period of four years and tackles this sensitive and political subject with dark humour. Added bonus, the brilliant Naomi Ackie (who appeared in Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice and Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17) is part of the cast, and the film is produced by the sensitive Barry Jenkins, who won an Oscar for Moonlight in 2016.
Adam’s Sake by Laura Wandel Critics’ Week – opening film
After her heart-wrenching and insightful film Playground (2022), the Belgian director brings together two outstanding actors, Léa Drucker and Anamaria Vartolomei, for her new film in which Adam, a 4-year-old boy, is admitted to hospital for malnutrition following a court order. ‘Lucy, the head nurse, allows Adam’s mother to stay with her son beyond the visiting hours set by the judge. However, the situation gets complicated when she refuses to leave her son again.’ It promises to be another powerful story about childhood and violence.
Baise-en-ville by Martin Jauvat Critics‘ Week – Special screening
Discovered in 2022 at ACID, Cannes’ cutting-edge selection, with the refreshing Grand Paris, about two friends struggling in the French suburbs, Martin Jauvat returns with a second feature film that promises to be a modern comedy of manners. The young director brings us Sprite, a 25-year-old who ‘desperately needs to find a job’. Except that he lives on the outskirts of Paris and doesn’t have a driving licence. Nevertheless, he finds a job in a start-up and, on the advice of his driving instructor (Emmanuelle Bercot), signs up to a dating app in order to seduce women who live near his workplace. We can’t wait to see where this surprising pitch will take us.
● ● READ MORE ● ● PORTRAIT · Martin Jauvat : « J’ai envie de filmer la banlieue et en même temps d’avoir un retour à l’enfance »
Love Letters by Alice Douard Critics’ Week – Special screening
Winner of the Best Short Film César Award for L’Attente in 2024, she is one of the up-and-coming directors of French cinema. Her first feature brings together actors we love, Monia Chokri, Ella Rumpf and Noémie Lvovsky. It tells the story of Céline, 32, expecting her first child without being pregnant. Her wife, Nadia, will give birth to their daughter… A study of modern motherhood which we hope will be at least as subtle as the original short film, and in the same style, somewhere between anxiety and reverie.
L’Aventura by Sophie Letourneur ACID – opening film
Following Voyages en Italie (2023), the French filmmaker (La Vie au Ranch, Les Coquillettes) continues her poignant and raw examination of couples and their inevitable decline. The holiday adventures of Sophie (played by the director) and Jean-Philippe (Philippe Katerine) continue in L’Aventura, which takes its title from Michelangelo Antonioni’s cult film L’Avventura (1960). This time with their children, Claudine, 11, and Raoul, 3, in Sardinia. Another trip to Italy that we can’t wait to take.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Sophie Letourneur : « Je suis en recherche de fusion permanente. »
The Girl in the Snow by Louise Hémon Director’ Fortnight
‘I love the emotions that come with cold, heights and emptiness,’ the filmmaker told us when we interviewed her just before she left to shoot this intriguing first feature film. In her short films (L’Homme le plus fort and Salomé sur sa slackline), the mountains have allowed her to explore the inner lives of her characters. Louise Hémon played with the myth of this backdrop, but anchored it in the contemporary world. Set on the eve of 1900, The Girl in the snow follows a schoolteacher (Galatéa Bellugi) who has just arrived in the Hautes-Alpes region of France and who sets out to explore her desires.
● ● READ MORE ● ● Louise Hémon : « J’aime les émotions liées au froid, au vertige, au vide. »
Météors by Hubert Charuel Official Selection – Un Certain Regard
In 2017, Hubert Charuel’s first film, Bloody Milk, left a lasting impression. This agricultural thriller, presented at the Critics’ Week, was far from being naturalistic. It plunged us into the hell of a dairy farmer facing a cattle epidemic. Needless to say, we’ve been eagerly awaiting his second fiction film, presented this year in Un Certain Regard. Starring Paul Kircher, Idir Azougli and Salif Cissé, Météors tells the story of two young friends who embark on a series of dubious schemes to escape their home region, the Grand Est, in the heart of France’s ‘empty diagonal’. Once again, the French director’s sharp and deeply human style is likely to strike a chord.
It Was Just An Accident by Jafar Panahi Official Selection – In competition
Every film by the Iranian filmmaker is an event. Persecuted by the regime, he is banned from filming and leaving the country, and has been imprisoned several times, most recently in 2023. It is therefore unlikely that he will be able to attend Cannes’ Croisette to present It was Just An Accident, which is expected to feature the stylistic creativity and powerful political charge of his previous films – The Circle (Golden Lion in Venice in 2000), Taxi Tehran (Golden Bear in Berlin in 2015), 3 Faces (Best Screenplay Award in Cannes in 2018)… The enigmatic synopsis suggests an unrelenting plot: ‘After a simple accident, events spiral out of control.’
Traduction : Keziah Serreau
