Well, I did tell you people not to worry. Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” was very much going to be included in this year’s Cannes competition — Tarantino desperately wanted to be there. It was finally confirmed today that, along with Abdellatif Kechiche‘s “Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo,” Tarantino’s movie will indeed play in competition at Cannes in two weeks. It will screen on May 21st, which would mark exactly 25 years since Pulp Fiction had its Cannes debut.
Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux: The film is a “love letter to the Hollywood of his childhood, a rock music tour of 1969, and an ode to cinema as a whole.”
As for Mektoub, which, I was told, includes a prolonged sex scene, Kechiche-style, Fremaux said he “saw the film last Thursday, as it was still being edited, and definitely right in the middle of edits.” Running four effing hours, Intermezzo will screen at the end of the festival “so the DCP has time to get there.”
Gaspar Noé’s “Lux Aeterna” and Patricio Guzmán’s “La Cordillera de los sueños “were also note-worthy additions in today’s lineup announcement. The Noe is supposed to be 50 minutes in length and is a midnight screening. Wowza.
The project was gaining steam in 2023, and then the WGA strikes hit, which deflated the entire thing. At the time, Austin Butler and Colin Farrell were in talks to star as the film’s two leads.