The Cannes Film Festival is making it seem like an almost-certainty that the prestigious cinematic event will be happening on July 6th, despite France currently being in lockdown due to the COVID virus. The dirty little secret around journalistic circles is that absolutely nobody has reserved lodging or flight for this year’s Cannes. It’s going to be a last-minute thing for most, including myself.
With that being said, yes, Cannes is going on with the show and even went as far as announcing the opening night film on Monday. If rumors were pointing towards Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” kicking off the fest then we were all gravely surprised to learn that Leos Carax’s “Annette” will kick-off the 74th edition of this Cannes festival.
Carax’s last release was 2012’s “Holy Motors.” That Cannes-premiered film ended up not only getting critically-acclaimed, but also appeared in a slew of best-of-the-decade lists, even finishing 20th on our 2010’s critics poll of the best movies of the last decade.
The cryptic, but official synopsis of “Annette” has a stand-up comedian (played by Adam Driver) and his opera singer wife (Marion Cotillard) discovering that their two-year-old daughter has a “surprising gift.” Not much else is known about the movie at this time.
The screenplay for “Annette” was written by the musical Mael brothers (Ron and Russell), otherwise known as Sparks a musical duo launched 47 years ago. Amazon Studios will release the musical love story in late summer 2021 in theaters and on Amazon Prime Video.
With all that being said, if we consider all the holdouts from this year’s canceled event, and add them to all the current productions set to wrap in the next few months, you have the makings for one hell of an official competition.
As always, our Cannes list keeps changing from week to week, but these are the films with the highest chances of competing for the Palme d’Or this year:
Almost Certainties:
”The French Dispatch” (Wes Anderson)
”Annette” (Leos Carax)
”Ahed’s Knee” (Nadav Lapid)
”Memoria” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
”Benedetta” (Paul Verhoeven)
”Tromperie” (Arnaud Desplechin)
”Bergman Island” (Mia Hansen-Løve)
”Chocobar” (Lucrecia Martel)
”Tre Piani” (Nanni Moretti)
“Italian Studies” (Adam Leon)
“Where is Anne Frank?” (Ari Folman)
Maybes:
”Blossoms” (Wong Kar-wai)
”Soggy Bottom” (Paul Thomas Anderson)
”The Way of the Wind” (Terrence Malick)
”Macbeth” (Joel Coen)
”Blonde” (Andrew Dominik)
”The Power of the Dog” (Jane Campion)
”Les Olympiades” (Jacques Audiard)
”The Souvenir Part II” (Joanna Hogg)
”Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Ostlund)
”The Hand of God” (Paolo Sorrentino)
"Mektoub: Canto Duo" (Abdelatif Kechiche)
“Benediction” (Terrence Davies)
“The Green Knight” (David Lowery)
“Algerien Par Accident” (Karim Aïnouz)
“Last Night in Soho” (Edgar Wright)
“The Souvenir Pt. 2” (Joanna Hogg)
“The Northman” (Robert Eggers)
“After Yang” (Kogonada)
“Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” (Ana Lily Amirpour)
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