from musicals to horror films, rich and varied French cinema

Big names in French cinema and new announced gems meet in the selection of the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

Jacques Audiard, Christophe Honoré, Gilles Lellouche, Alain Guiraudie and Noémie Merlant are among the French filmmakers expected on the Croisette for this 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. They will find directors like Agathe Riedinger or Louise Corvoisier who are in the official selection for the first time.

In the running for possibly a second Palme d’Or after that obtained for Dheepan (2015), Jacques Audiard will present Emilia Perez, “a musical (around) Mexican cartels”, said Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate of the Cannes Festival, during the presentation of the official selection on April 11, in Paris. In the film’s credits, actress Zoe Saldana, actress and singer Selena Gomez and actor Edgar Ramirez.

The second French entry into the competition “for a completely American film” is the feature film by Coralie Fargeat, The Substance, with American actress Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. The fiction, in the credits of which we find Ray Liotta and Dennis Quaid, is a genre film, “an assumed body horror”. “Put on protection”warned Thierry Frémaux who explains that there will be a lot of blood. “We have the feeling that he is crossing the screen”, he adds. By evoking the style of Coralie Fargeant (Revenge)Thierry Frémaux took the opportunity to greet Julia Ducournau, Palme d’Or, in passing 2021 for Titanium.

Christophe Honoré, with Marcello Mio, is once again in the running for the Palme d’Or. He finds Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Benjamin Biolay in an almost family film since it is a fictional evocation of the great Italian actor, Marcello Mastroianni, the father of the French actress. Chiara Mastroianni plays her fictional double, who decides overnight to live in “in his father’s shoes”. It is indeed a fiction and not a documentary, insisted Thierry Frémaux.

The “Rough Diamond” by Riedinger, “L’amour ouf” by Lellouche

After several visits to the Croisette, including the very noticed one with THE Great Bath (2018), actor and director Gilles Lellouche enters the competition with Love phew, her “big project”, another French musical comedy with Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil. Romance, that of Jackie and Clotaire, who grew up together in the north of France in the 1980s, already has a release date: the 16th next October.

This is the first film by Agathe Riedinger, which Thierry Frémaux described as “a great-niece from the South of France” by the Dardenne brothers, which closes the list of French works candidates for the Palme d’Or. Liane, the character of Rough diamond, is a young girl whose desire for accomplishment passes “by a second existence, virtual, on social networks”. “It’s an extremely contemporary film”, declared Thierry Frémaux. Vincent Cassel is starring in a film in competition, The Shrouds, THE latest feature film by Canadian David Cronenberg.

In the Un Certain Regard section, that of discoveries, three first French films will be presented: The kingdom by Julien Colonna, Twenty Gods ! by Louise Courvoisier and September Says by Ariane Labed. Boris Lojkine will propose, for his part, The Story of Souleymane where he finds Nina Meurisse, after Camille (2019). Festival-goers will also discover THE Dog trial, a first film directed by Franco-Swiss Laetitia Dosch.

After Annette, opening film of the special edition of the Cannes Film Festival which took place in July 2021, Leos Carax returns to the Croisette and to Cannes Première with It’s not me, an autobiographical essay “rather short” And “dazzling”, according to Thierry Frémaux. In this new section of the festival, Emmanuel Courcol will project In Fanfare. His previous fiction, A Triumph, had been selected in 2020, but was not entitled to a Cannes session due to the pandemic. “We are happy to welcome him physically,” rejoiced the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival.