The 2024 Cannes Film Festival was unveiled this morning, meaning there will be many first looks at some of the year’s most anticipated films. The most notable of the day is a first-look image of Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his legal enforcer Roy Cohn in Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice.”
Screening in competition at Cannes, “The Apprentice,” is a dive into the underbelly of the American empire. The drama charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn. The film also stars Academy Award nominee Maria Bakalova (as Ivana Trump) and Martin Donovan (as Fred Trump Senior). Some good context on who Roy Cohn was is in the documentary, “Where’s My Roy Cohn” (watch that trailer below).
Abbasi is known for Cannes entries like “Border” (2018) and “Holy Spider” (2022). “The Apprentice” is his English-language feature debut.
Other first looks released today include (in order, beneath the ‘Apprenctice’ image below, “Motel Destino” starring Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha, and Fábio Assunção, from filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, who was at Cannes last year with the comepetition title “Firebrand”; Ariane Labed’s feature directorial debut “September Says,” which stars Mia Tharia (“Klara and the Sun,” “The Listeners”) and Rakhee Thakrar (“Wonka,” “Sex Education”) and introduces Pascale Kann in her screen debut; Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour” starring Gonçalo Waddington, Crista Alfaiate, Cláudio da Silva, and Lang Khê Tran; and “The Girl With The Needle” by Magnus von Horn, director of Cannes titles “Sweat” (2020) and “The Here After” (2015), starring Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, and Besir Zeciri.
