The Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival, which will be held from May 14 to 25, is known. For this 77th edition, Francis Ford Coppola will present his latest film, Megalopolis, forty-five years after his second Palme d’Or for Apocalypse Now (1979), announced Thursday April 11, the general delegate of the event, Thierry Frémaux , during a press conference. The 85-year-old cinema giant won his first Palme d’Or with Secret Conversation in 1974. “We are delighted that he is doing us the honor of coming to present this film,” Thierry Frémaux commented to the press. .
The subject of Megalopolis – a film with a budget of 100 million dollars (around 93 million euros) – remains vague for the moment, around the destruction of a megalopolis which resembles New York and a reconstruction which takes place between an architect and the mayor of the city. The American press evokes a testamentary film and already compares it to Citizen Kane (1941), by Orson Welles, considered one of the greatest films in the history of cinema.
Thierry Frémaux has only revealed nineteen films in competition out of the twenty usually expected. Feature films will undoubtedly be announced later.
Honorary Palme d’Or for George Lucas
Francis Ford Coppola is not the only Palme d’Or winner to return to competition. Jacques Audiard, Palme d’Or 2015 with Dheepan, returns to La Croisette with Emilia Perez, a cross between thriller and musical against the backdrop of drug trafficking in Mexico, with actresses Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana.
On the heavyweight side, David Cronenberg also enters the competition with Les Linceuls, a mourning film directed by Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel.
Paul Schrader reunites with his actor Richard Gere (as for American Gigolo) for Oh, Canada. The Apprentice, which is about Donald Trump, is salivating with Ali Abbasi behind the camera (Border). Exiled Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, another Cannes regular, will present his Limonov. The Ballad of Eddie taken from the book by Frenchman Emmanuel Carrère. Having just won a second Oscar, Emma Stone will compete in Kinds of Kindness, by Yorgos Lanthimos. Marcello Mio, by Christophe Honoré, will evoke Marcello Mastroianni (died in 1996) through his daughter Chiara, in a film in which she will play alongside her mother, Catherine Deneuve.
Some big names in cinema had already been announced. Thus, Kevin Costner, back to the western with Horizon. An American Saga won its ticket, out of competition. And George Lucas, 79, father of the Star Wars saga, will receive the honorary Palme d’Or.
Camille Cottin, mistress of ceremonies
Also out of competition, Furiosa, the new part of the Mad Max franchise, by George Miller, will have the honor of the red carpet with its stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. The opening, still out of competition, goes to Quentin Dupieux, specialist in the absurd, with The Second Act, in which Léa Seydoux plays.
British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank, American Honey) will receive the Golden Coach at the Filmmakers’ Fortnight, which rewards “audacity” and “intransigence in direction and production”.
Camille Cottin will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and Greta Gerwig, director of Barbie, one of last year’s biggest blockbusters, will chair the jury. Quebec director Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, Les Amours Imaginaires, Mommy) will chair the jury for the Un Certain Regard prize.
This 77th edition is eagerly awaited after the impact of the 2023 Palme d’Or, Anatomy of a Fall, by Justine Triet. “The unanimous response we had proves that 2023 was a very great year,” confirmed Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, in an interview with the American magazine Variety.
