La Quinzaine des Cinéastes with Gondry, Hong Sang-soo and films from all over the world

Non-competitive, La Quinzaine des cinéastes is the section dedicated to discovering new filmmakers, but has nevertheless slipped a few recognized authors into its 55th selection announced on Tuesday April 18. Frenchman Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Be nice, rewind), will present The solution booka “comedy around the creative process (…) of a manic-depressive filmmaker“, with Pierre Niney and Blanche Gardin, announced the general delegate, Julien Rejl.

The South Korean Hong Sang-soo, used to major festivals, is selected at the end (with Woo-ru-ui-ha-ru), and the Fortnight will also screen the latest films by Cédric Kahn, the author of Prayerback with The Goldman trial on extreme left activism in the 1970s or the new baroque queer work of Bertrand Mandico.

Indian, Cameroonian and Russian discoveries

Most of the selection of 19 new films is however centered on discoveries, with in particular an Indian film on the repression of sexuality (Agra by Kanu Behl), a Russian road movie “totally independent” shot in 2021 (Grace by Ilya Povolotsky) or even a Belgian-Cameroonian film “between fiction and documentary“on the course of a”mother-courage” (Mambar Pierrette by Rosine Mbakam).

4,000 films were viewed (including short films) testifying to a “strong return of Asia and the United States and some African proposals“, underlined the general delegate. The films selected for May “embody a spirit of resistance to any form of ideology and dominant discourse“. Among the recurring motifs, “the uneasiness between the sexes“, “the return of the monk” And “a strong presence of genre cinema, from fantasy to adventure and thriller“, he pointed.

Like all Cannes selections, the former Directors’ Fortnight, renamed Directors’ Fortnight this year for the sake of inclusion, refuses to accept any quotas linked to origin or genre. In total, 27% of the feature films submitted were directed by female directors, who sign a slightly higher proportion of the feature films selected, at 32%, specified Julien Rejl.