Some notable updates about the 79th Cannes Film Festival, whose lineup will be announced on April 9. I’m told no opening night film has been selected just yet, so don’t expect one to be announced in the coming week. Now, here are the latest rumors I’ve heard…
After Östlund, Malick, Leigh, and Iñárritu, filmmakers who look to not have their films ready for Cannes include Lukas Dhont (“Coward”) and Albert Serra (“Out of This World”). Furthermore, question marks are starting to arise over whether Carlos Reygadas (“Wake of Umbra”) and Paweł Pawlikowski (“1949”) will be screening at the festival, with the latter very well possibly waiting it out until 2027.
In fact, as it stands, only two films have so far been selected for competition: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden” and Cristian Mungiu’s film, which are the only titles confirmed for now.
I’m also hearing that Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown,” which was highly tipped by most, might now be headed for Locarno or Venice — word remains murky as to why, but rumors are that it was met with perplexity by some programmers.
All of these top filmmakers potentially missing Cannes has me wondering if this might finally be the year Pedro Almodóvar wins the Palme d’Or. His latest, “Bitter Christmas,” is earning mostly positive reviews out of Spain. Almodóvar is the one filmmaker whom most international critics agree has long been overdue for the festival’s highest honor — a director whose body of work has not only defined modern Spanish filmmaking but has consistently been heralded over the span of nearly five decades.
On a potentially more positive note: word originally was that James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” might still be headed to Cannes, and that it was only being perceived as “unfinished” as part of a deliberate narrative to avoid the stigma of a perceived Cannes rejection and preserve its value ahead of a potential launch at the Venice Film Festival, where optics matter just as much as the film itself. The film is definitely ready, having already garnered an MPA rating.
I get it — by framing the absence from Cannes as a timing issue rather than a selection outcome, they maintain leverage with buyers and protect commercial perception, especially in light of how rollout narratives can backfire. Though without on-the-record confirmation, it remains a well-informed but unverified interpretation rather than established fact.
Finally, German filmmaker Fatih Akin has his new movie finished and ready to go; it’s called “Ghosts.” It’s a supernatural love story set in modern Hamburg. Akin was at Cannes last year with “Amrum,” which screened in the Cannes Premiere sidebar — will he be there again this year?
COMPETITION CONTENDERS
Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodovar)
Fjord (Cristi Mungiu)
Jack of Spades (Joel Coen)
Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Her Private Hell (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi)
Hope (Na Hong-jin)
Sheep in the Box (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer)
Butterfly Jam (Kantemir Balagov)
POSSIBILITIES
The Unknown (Arthur Harari)
The Loved One (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
The Long Winter (Andrew Haigh)
Let Love In (Felix Van Groeningen)
Switzerland (Anton Corbijn)
The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)
The Costume (Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Diary of a Chambermaid (Radu Jude)
Bucking Fastards (Werner Herzog)
Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun)
The Dream Adventure (Valeska Grisebach)
Hot Spot (Agnieszka Smoczyńska)
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning (Clio Barnard)
Alpha Gang (The Zellner Brothers)
Reptilia (Alejandro Landes)
Circles (Michel Franco)
The First Taste of Loneliness (Gu Xiaodong)
MAYBES (OR MIGHT NOT BE READY)
It Will Happen Tonight (Nanni Moretti)
Après (Kirill Serebrenikko)
Wake of Umbra (Carlos Reygadas)
Out of this World (Albert Serra)
Paper Tiger (James Gray)
Double Freedom (Lisandro Alonso)
1949 (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Untitled (Mike Leigh)
The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick)
FRENCH CONTENDERS
Red Rocks (Bruno Dumont)
A Good Little Soldier (Stephane Brizé)
Histoires De La Nuit (Lea Mysius)
Milo (Nicole Garcia)
I’ll Forget Your Name (Yann Gonzalez)
Roma Elastico (Bertrand Mandico)
Strawberries (Laïla Marrakchi)
Garance (Jeanne Herry)
When the Night Falls (Daniel Auteuil)
A Girl’s Story (Judith Godreche)
A Place To Heal (Cedric Kahn)
Moulin (Laszlo Nemes)
La Chaleur (Stéphane Demoustier)
Venus Electrificata (Pierre Salvadori)
The Last Concert (Alexandre Arcady)
Love Lessons (Martin Prevost)
OUT OF COMPETITION
Full Phil (Quentin Dupieux)
Colony (Yeon Sang-ho)
Imperium (Sergei Loznitsa)
Victorian Psycho (Zachary Wigon)
De Gaulle: Part One (Antonin Baudry)
Violette (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo (Takashi Miike)
Lost Paradise (Yeon Sang-ho)