more and more female directors and regulars still there… We analyzed the Official Selection

He knows the way. As a regular, British director Ken Loach will climb the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes for the 15th time in his long career with a film in the Official Selection. The doubly palmed filmmaker will therefore be in competition with The Old Oak against 18 other feature films in the company of a few colleagues who have their napkin ring on the Croisette: Wim Wenders (10 times selected), Nanni Moretti (9 times), Mario Bellocchio (8 times) or Hirozaku Kore-Eda ( 6 times).

The total could still climb if Thierry Frémeaux, the boss of the Festival, manages to convince Martin Scorsese (four times retained between 1976 and 1985) to present Killer of the Flower Moonwith Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert de Niro, in competition. “The request has been made.” As every year, a few films could still be invited to the Official Selection by the start of the Cannes Film Festival, which is being held this year from May 16 to 27.

A large third of the Official Selection is made up of newcomers, starting with the Franco-Senegalese Ramata-Toulaye Sy, whose Banel & Adama is the first feature film. Nevertheless, the average number of selections of directors selected exceeds 4 times (4.3), a sign of a large gap between the fresh blood injected and the veterans of the seventh art invited to each new film or almost.

Six directors, one record

Another highlight is the choice of the Cannes Film Festival to select six women in competition, i.e. almost a third of the Official Selection. A record, both in absolute value (the previous set at five, including a film co-directed with a man) and in proportion (31.4%, with a previous record set at 23% in 2022). Note that a third of the six selected (Kaouther Ben Hani and Ramata-Toulaye Sy) discover the festival when the others (Justine Triet, Alice Rohrwacher, Catherine Breillat and Jessica Hausner) have already presented films in the Official Selection.

The number of female directors who left Cannes with a Palme d’or can still be counted on the fingers of one hand: barely two, in more than seven decades. Jane Campion had been rewarded in 1993 for The Piano Lesson (and again, tied with Farewell my concubine by Chen Kaige) and Julia Ducournau had been crowned in 2021 for Titanium.