Festival workers prepare the red carpet during preparations for the 77th international film festival, Cannes, southern France on May 13, 2024.Andreea Alexandru/The Associated Press
The world’s most prestigious film festival kicks off next week under an unusually dark cloud, even for the perpetually on-edge global cinema community.
While the 78th annual edition of the Cannes Film Festival promises a wealth of cinematic riches from across the globe, it is a near-guarantee that every red-carpet premiere, every closed-door business meeting, and every hot-house news conference will be laced with a level of fear and loathing over just how and when U.S. President Donald Trump might slap tariffs on any films made “in foreign lands.”
Still, Cannes will offer a good number of distractions, from the biggest of Hollywood blockbusters (the latest and possibly final Mission: Impossible sequel) to new work from the highest tier of American auteurs (Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater) and renown international voices.
“We are fervent supporters of universalism. In the early days, the Festival de Cannes was all about the Western Europe-Hollywood dialogue, then it expanded to include Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe,” Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux said in an interview with The Globe. “Since then, it has become a tradition, or better still, an obligation. And it’s not difficult, because movies are made all over the world.”
As Cannes has proven time and again, especially over the past few years, its programmers have also displayed a profound impact on the eventual fall awards race, with such Cannes-certified titles as Parasite, The Zone of Interest, Anora, Anatomy of a Fall, Emilia Perez, and The Substance going from the Croisette to the Oscars stage.
“It’s true that in recent years, the ties between the Academy Awards and Cannes have grown stronger,” Fremaux said, noting that the festival and the Oscars in fact share a long history that stretches all the way back to Delbert Mann’s 1955 drama Marty, which won Cannes’ first Palme d’Or award before going on to then capture Best Picture. “Cannes is about discovery, and the Academy Awards are about celebration.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s Cannes opening, here are five under-the-radar Cannes titles that could keep the conversation going until awards season – and perhaps past any potential tariffs, too.
Alpha
France’s Julia Ducournau jolted Cannes wide awake in 2021 after capturing the Palme d’Or for her intense erotic thriller Titane. Now Ducournau is back with her third feature, an intriguing-sounding drama about a troubled teenage girl (Mélissa Boros) whose new tattoo sparks all manner of upset. Word on the street is that Alpha, which co-stars Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), is so shocking that it will make Titane look like a Pixar movie.
The Six Billion Dollar Man
A last-minute addition to the festival lineup (as in, it was announced just hours before the final screening schedule went live Thursday evening), Eugene Jarecki’s documentary focuses on the scandal-plagued WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The doc is set to be a hot ticket, especially after it was pulled from a Sundance premiere by Jarecki this past January after the director said “recent and unexpected developments have emerged at the heart of the story.”
The History of Sound
South Africa’s Oliver Hermanus snags two of the film world’s hottest leading men, Paul Mescal (Gladiator II) and Josh O’Connor (Challengers), for this First World War-era queer love story. Given that Hermanus’s 2011 film Beauty won the Queer Palm, and in 2022 delivered the Bill Nighy drama Living, a shockingly good remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, expectations are high.
It Was Just an Accident
Iranian director Jafar Panahi‘s first feature since being arrested by state authorities for the supposed crime of filmmaking, this drama arrives at Cannes as both a celebration of the creative spirit and a rebuke to authoritarian regimes around the world. Few details are available as to the film’s plot – the logline hints at a minor accident that sets off a series of escalating conflicts – but anything from Panahi (No Bears, This Is Not a Film) is worth talking about.
The Secret Agent
In 2019, Brazil’s Kleber Mendonca Filho (alongside regular collaborator Juliano Dornelles) delivered the surprise hit of TIFF with the wild, genre-hopping Bacurau, which was part siege movie, part rural drama, and part blood-soaked freak-out. Now, Filho is back with this political thriller following a teacher (Narcos star Wagner Moura) caught in the collapse of a Brazilian military dictatorship.
