(New York) Nearly half a century after winning the Palme d’Or in Cannes with his Apocalypse NowFrancis Ford Coppola will return to the Croisette in May to present in preview, and in competition, his epic Megalopolis.
The news was confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday by a person familiar with the project, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to make the announcement. It’s the Hollywood webzine Deadline who first announced that Megalopolis would be projected in competition at 77e Cannes Film Festival on May 17.
The festival did not immediately respond to messages Tuesday. The general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux, is expected to unveil the program on Thursday in Paris. Mr. Frémaux declared last week to the magazine Variety that he hoped to program Megalopolis This year.
“ Megalopolis is a project he wanted to do for so long and he did it independently, in his own way, as an artist, Mr. Frémaux said. He built the legend of the Cannes Film Festival and it would be an honor to welcome him again, as a filmmaker who comes to present his new film. »
The fact that Megalopolis is screened in competition means that Coppola, aged 85, will be eligible for the Cannes Palme d’Or, 45 years after winning it for Apocalypse Now.
He shared the Palme that year with Volker Schlöndorff and his Drumbut he also won the highest distinction 50 years ago for Secret conversationwith Gene Hackman.
In recent weeks, Coppola has projected Megalopolis for friends and family and started showing it to distributors. The project, which he began designing in the early 1980s, would have cost 120 million. Coppola invested his money with the help of his wine empire to carry out a passion project of rebuilding a metropolis. It stars Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito, and includes a star-studded cast, including Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Chloe Fineman, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman.
The Cannes Film Festival, which opens on May 14, has already announced the premieres of the new Mad Max by George Miller and Horizon, an American Saga by Kevin Costner. Earlier Tuesday, the festival announced that George Lucas would receive an honorary Palme d’Or.