The 76th Cannes Film Festival also features the out-of-competition world premieres of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
“It’s a Wes Anderson film, full stop,” said Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux. The Focus Features film, which will bow in limited release on June 16, was expected to screen.
Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, a Palme d’Or winner in 2018 for Shoplifters and consummate Cannes regular, is back in the Cannes competition with Monster. Though no story details have yet been disclosed, it is known to star Ando Sakura (Shoplifters) and was scored by the late, great musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away in March.
Ken Loach
Two-time Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach is back at Cannes with The Old Oak, a socially-relevant drama from the English master, focused on the last remaining pub in a small English village where local people are leaving because the mines have closed. But with houses being cheap and available, the spot becomes ideal location for Syrian refugees.
Nanni Moretti
Another former Palme d’Or winner, Nanni Moretti (2001’s The Son’s Room), returns to the Croisette with Il Sol Dell’Avvenire, a Rome-set feature set partly in the 1950s as well as the worlds of cinema and the circus. It is 45 years since Moretti’s Cannes debut with Ecce Bombo in 1978.
Another Italian Cannes regular, Marco Bellocchio (The Traitor, Vincere), is back in competition with Rapito.
Todd Haynes’ May December starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton will also premiere in competition. The story follows a married couple who buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about a public scandal in their past.
Also in competition, Austrian director Jessica Hausner, whose sci-fi feature Little Joe screened in competition in 2019, returns with Club Zero.
Six Women in Competition
She is one of six women in competition (13 male helmers).
The others include Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, whose Tuscany-set drama La Chimera stars Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Alba Rohrwache, and Vincenzo Nemolato;
French filmmaker Justine Triet, in competition with the thriller Anatomy of a Fall, featuring Toni Erdmann star Sandra Hüller;
her compatriot Catherine Breillat with L’été dernier starring Léa Drucker (Close);
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) with Four Daughters;
Senegalese-French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy, whose debut feature, Anatomie d’une Chute will premiere in competition this year.
Five female directors in competition is an all-time record for Cannes, but it is still long way from gender parity.
Oscar-winner Steve McQueen will return to Cannes with Occupied City, a look at the director’s adopted home in Amsterdam. The documentary, which will screen out of competition, looks at the Dutch city during the time of Nazi occupation during World War II, between the years 1940 and 1945. McQueen brought his film debut, Hunger, to Cannes in 2008.
Another high-profile non-competition title will be for The Idol, from Sam Levinson, a TV series for HBO featuring Lily-Rose Depp and Canadian pop star The Weeknd, who also co-created the show.
Taskeshi Kitano
Japanese legend Taskeshi Kitano also scored an out-of-competition slot, and will bring his latest, Kubi, to Cannes this year. This may be the last feature from the comedian, auteur, actor, and all-around industry legend. The movie is a period samurai action drama based on Kitano’s 2019 novel of the same title. Scoring the Japanese icon’s appearance is something of a coup for Cannes, as Kitano has tended to be loyal to the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Golden Lion in 1997 for his now-classic crime drama Hanabi.
The Un Certain Regard titles include The Delinquents from director Rodrigo Moreno, debut features How to Have Sex from U.K. filmmaker Molly Walker and Goodbye Julia from director Mohamed Kordofani, and The Buriti Flower by directors João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora.
Other titles include Monia Chokri’s Simple Comme Sylvain, Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama The New Boy, produced by, and co-starring, Cate Blanchett, Rosalie from director Stéphanie Di Giusto, and Antony Chen’s The Breaking Ice.
Asmae El Moudir brings her Moroccan feature The Mother of All Lies to Un Certain Regard. Other highlights include Felipe Galvez’s The Settlers, and The Omen, the directorial debut from director Baloji Tshiani.
Cannes has already announced two major Hollywood productions topremiere on the Croisette: James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth entry in the archaeologist adventure franchise starring Harrison Ford; and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an Apple Originals drama, starring DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and De Niro.
Last year, premieres of Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis helped Cannes recapture its red carpet panache and the festival will be hoping this year’s star-studded roll-outs will have a similar impact.
Frémaux said he wanted to put Killers of the Flower Moon in competition but that Scorcese turned him down.
Cannes regular Almodóvar will also return for the world premiere of his LGBTQ Western Strange Way of Life, an English-language short starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.
Jeanne du Barry, a French period drama directed by, and starring, Polisse and DNA director Mäiwenn, will open the 2013 edition May 16. Mäiwenn plays Jeanne Vaubernier, a working-class woman who became the last official courtesan of French King Louis XV, played by Johnny Depp.
The selection is certain to raise a few eyebrows, given Depp’s recent public legal spat with ex-wife Amber Heard. Mäiwenn is also in the spotlight, after a police report that she is sued by French journalist for assault. Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of online investigative newspaper Mediapart, claims he was having dinner at a restaurant in Paris when the director attacked him: grabbing him violently by the hair and spitting in his face.
Two-time Cannes Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Triangle of Sadness) heads up this year’s Cannes competition jury.
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27.
The full lineup of the 76th Cannes Film Fest:
COMPETITION
Club Zero, Jessica Hausner
The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer
Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismaki
Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania
Asteroid City, Wes Anderson
Anatomie d’Une Chute, Justine Triet
Monster, Hiokazu Kore-eda
Il Sol dell’Avvenire, Nanni Moretti
La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher
L’Eté Dernier, Catherine Breillat
La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, Tran Anh Hung
About Dry Grasses, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
May December, Todd Haynes
Rapito, Marco Bellocchio
Firebrand, Karim Ainouz
The Old Oak, Ken Loach
*Banel et Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Perfect Days, Wim Wenders
Jeunesse, Wang Bing
OUT OF COMPETITION
Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese
Jeanne du Barry, Maïwenn
The Idol, Sam Levinson
Cobweb, Kim Jee-woon
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, James Mangold
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Omar La Fraise, Elias Belkeddar
Acide, Just Philippot
Kennedy, Anurag Kashyap
CANNES PREMIERE
Le Temps d’Aimer, Katell Quillevere
Kubi, Takeshi Kitano
Cerrar los Ojos, Victor Erice
Bonnar, Pierre et Marthe, Martin Provost
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Anselm, Wim Wenders
Occupied City, Steve McQueen
Man in Black, Wang Bing
