Francis Ford Coppola is the headline act at a Cannes Film Festival filled with Hollywood legends subsequent week, although a biopic of Donald Trump from an Iranian director may seize much more consideration.
Hollywood stars of a sure age — Kevin Costner, Demi Moore and Richard Gere — might be again on the French Cote d’Azur for the movie business’s favorite shindig, which runs from May 14 to 25.
And two growing older however beloved franchises are represented, with “Star Wars” creator George Lucas receiving a lifetime achievement award and the most recent “Mad Max” installment, “Furiosa”, getting its world premiere.
There are loads of younger stars, too, together with “Saltburn” alumni Jacob Elordi (co-starring with Gere in Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada”) and Barry Keoghan within the buzzy coming-of-age story “Bird” by radical British director Andrea Arnold.
They are among the many movies competing for the Palme d’Or, the pageant’s high prize, which this yr might be awarded by a jury headed by “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig and together with actors Omar Sy (“Lupin”) and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).
Two movies within the competitors are notably eye-catching.
“The Apprentice”, by Iranian director Ali Abbasi, is a biopic of Trump’s childhood starring Sebastian Stan, recognized for enjoying the Winter Soldier in Marvel movies.
And “Emilia Perez” has fairly the synopsis: a musical a few Mexican cartel boss present process a intercourse change to flee the authorities, with pop celebrity Selena Gomez in a supporting position and directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, a former Palme d’Or winner.
But the new ticket is undoubtedly Coppola’s “Megalopolis” — a challenge that “The Godfather” director has been considering for some 40 years and which started preliminary manufacturing as way back as 2001.
A Roman epic set in modern-day New York, it stars Adam Driver as a visionary architect searching for to rebuild the crumbling metropolis. An enigmatic teaser clip reveals him clambering on a roof and stopping time.
Coppola, who self-funded the $120 million challenge, seems unafraid of over-hyping it. In a press release to Vanity Fair, he gave an inventory of 40-plus influences that included Voltaire, Plato, Shakespeare, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Kurosawa, “Moses, and the prophets all thrown in”.
There is palpable stress about whether or not the 85-year-old director can match his masterpieces of the Seventies, when he twice received the Palme d’Or for “Apocalypse Now” and “The Conversation”.
Elsewhere, Emma Stone reunites with director Yorgos Lanthimos, contemporary from their Oscar triumph with “Poor Things”, for “Kinds of Kindness” — a trio of bizarro tales additionally that includes up-and-coming actor Margaret Qualley.
Qualley, daughter of Andie McDowell, has two movies in competitors, additionally showing in Demi Moore’s sudden comeback, slasher horror “The Substance”.
Film followers are additionally excited for brand new works from body-horror maestro David Cronenberg (“The Shrouds”), Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (“Parthenope”) and Oliver Stone (“Lula”, a documentary about Brazil’s president).
Playing out of competitors, Costner returns to his favorite style, the Western, with the epic “Horizon, an American Saga”, whereas France continues its bid to create its personal blockbusters with a shiny new model of “The Count of Monte Cristo”.
Chinese followers are excited for the premiere of “She’s Got No Name” starring one in all their largest stars, Ziyi Zhang. Billed because the nation’s costliest manufacturing of the yr, it tackles the delicate subject of ladies’s rights in China.
Other political choices embody “The Invasion” by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” by Iran’s Mohammad Rasoulof.
Rasoulof has been jailed up to now for criticising the federal government and is underneath strain to withdraw from Cannes, in line with his lawyer.
Legendary Japanese animators Studio Ghibli — makers of “Spirited Away”, “My Neighbour Totoro” and “Howl’s Moving Castle” — will obtain an honorary Palme d’Or, the primary supplied to a bunch.
One doable spoiler, nevertheless, is hanging over the proceedings. Around 100 staff on the pageant, together with projectionists and ticket-sellers have referred to as for a strike over pay and situations. They say it won’t put the occasion in danger, however may trigger disruptions.
© 2024 AFP