40 Films That Might go to Cannes

The above image is the first one for Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero.” You’d be a fool not to think that the French filmmaker has a major shot at cracking this year’s Cannes competition, again. Her last one was the mixed reviewed “Little Joe,” but she’s a bright young talent that delivered big time with “Amour Fou” in 2014 and the buzz is good for “Club Zero.”

Official synopsis: A charismatic teacher joins an elite boarding school introducing a new subject: conscious eating. Under her lead, the teenage students start to challenge social norms by reducing their food consumption, until they are finally ready to enter Club Zero.

It’s February, which means the time has come for my monthly Cannes update. Press and industry accreditation has officially opened this morning, which also means we’re closer to the main event than we think. The official lineup should be announced a little more than two months from now.

I’ve amassed 40 titles that seem like no-brainers for the 76th edition of the festival. They’ve been split into three different categories. Let’s start off with English-language productions:

Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”
Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest”
Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things”
Woody Allen’s “WASP22”
Todd Haynes’ “May/December”
Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers”
Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders”
Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla”
Sean Durkin’s “The Iron Claw”
Michel Franco’s “Memory”

Next up we have world cinema. It’ll be interesting to see what festival director Thierry Fremaux does with the Italian contingent. As it stands, some major names from Italy will probably want to sneak into competition (Garrone, Moretti, Bellocchio, Rohrwacher). You also have no-brainers that will be part of the selection such as Ceylan, Sissako, Loach, Kore-eda and Kaurismaki.

Abdherrane Sissako’s “The Perfumed Hill”
Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera”
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “On Barren Weeds”
Cristi Puiu’s “MMXX”
Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak”
Radu Jude’s “Do Not Expect too Much of the End …”
Kirill Serebrenikkov’s “Limonov”
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster”
Matteo Garrone’s “The Captain”
Aki Kaurismaki’s “Fallen Leaves”
Lisandro Alonso’s “Eureka”
Nanni Moretti’s “Il sol dell'avvenire”
Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione”
Joachim Lafosse’s “Un Silence”
Victor Erice’s “Cerrar Los Ojos”
Miguel Gomes’ “Selavjaria”

The same intense competition will happen on the French side, with Campillo, Breillat, Dumont, Bonnello and others seeking a coveted spot in the official competition. And what about those two Godard movies, rumored by a commenter here to be short films?

Jean-Luc Godard’s “Scenario” and “Funny Wars”
Robin Campillo’s “Red Island”
Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer”
Bruno Dumont’s “The Empire”
Bertrand Bonnello’s “The Beast”
Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall”
Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero”
Catherine Corsini’s “Le Retour”
Maiwenn’s “Jeanne Du Barry”
Valerie Donzelli‘s “Love and Forests”

That’s 40 titles, and, already, this year’s fest is shaping up to be an improvement from last year’s event, which still gave us critically acclaimed works from Albert Serra, Jerzy Skolimowski, David Cronenberg, Park Chan-wook and Ruben Ostlund.

The 76th edition of the Festival de Cannes will take place from May 16th to the 27th, 2023.