Let’s catch up on all things Cannes Film Festival. For one, if you haven’t seen it, Cannes recently revealed its 2024 poster, featuring a scene from “Rhapsody in August,” directed by the great Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, 81 at the time (see it below in full). But there’s much more, including today’s announcement of new titles. This morning, the Cannes Festival announced the addition of thirteen titles to the line-up, featuring notable names from filmmakers like Oliver Stone and Lou Ye and French filmmakers like Arnaud Desplechin and Michel Hazanavicius.
Hazanavicius, known for the 2011 Oscar-winning Best Picture title, “The Artist,” is the only three of this trio in competition, however. His new film is the animated “The Most Precious of Cargoes.” Set during World War II, it centers on a French Jewish family who is deported to Auschwitz. On the train to the death camp, in a desperate gesture, the father throws one of his twins out into the snow, where a childless Polish couple discovers him. Clearly, this will be a heavy picture despite the whimsical format. French icon Jean-Louis Trintignant, who passed away in 2022, is the narrator’s voice.
In recent years, Oliver Stone has focused on several documentaries about political leaders or figures and continues on this route with “Lula” about former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which is in the Special Screening section. Also premiering in the same section is “An Unfinished Film,” by Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye, known for “Spring Fever,” which won the Prix du scénario award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
A mainstay at Cannes, French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin’s “Filmlovers!” (“Spectateurs” in French) revisits the character of Paul Dédalus, who previously appeared in “My Sex Life… or How I Got into an Argument” (1996) and “My Golden Days” (2016). The new and final chapter in the series will revolve around a movie theatre from the 1960s to the present day.
Other new Palme d’Or contenders include Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig” and Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu, who will make his Competition debut with his third feature “Three Miles to the End of the World” about a gay and ostracized teenager. Check out the full addition to the 2024 Cannes Film Festival below.
UN CERTAIN REGARD
WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS by Rúnar Rúnarsson
NIKI by Céline Sallette | 1st film
FLOW by Gints Zilbalodis
CANNES PREMIERES
VIVRE, MOURIR, RENAITRE by Gaël Morel
MARIA by Jessica Palud
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
SPECTATEURS by Arnaud Desplechin
NASTY by Tudor Giurgiu
LULA by Oliver Stone
AN UNFINISHED FILM by Lou Ye
OUT OF COMPETITION
LE COMTE DE MONTE-CRISTO by Alexandre De La Patellière et Matthieu Delaporte
COMPETITION:
LA PLUS PRÉCIEUSE DES MARCHANDISES by Michel Hazanavicius
TREI KILOMETRI PANA LA CAPATUL LUMII by Emanuel Parvu
(Trois kilomètres jusqu’à la fin du monde)
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG by Mohammad Rasoulof
