The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 15-24, 2024. According to the city’s Office of Tourism, the festival is the most popular event worldwide after the Olympics. As usual, thousands of cinephiles, film professionals, and journalists will converge on a two-mile seaside boulevard, La Croisette.
Without a doubt, the main attraction is an expertly curated program of films. Besides new releases, the organizers have arranged to screen an authoritative, history-making reconstruction of French writer-director Abel Gance’s silent film Napoléon (1927), which survived in fragments and 22 competing versions. Looking to the future, the festival organizers have also created a new Immersive Competition for experiments in augmented or virtual reality.
Here’s everything else you need to know about Cannes 2024!
Guests of Honor
Usually, each honorary Palme d’Or goes to a specific person. For the very first time, festival organizers will present an honorary Palme d’Or to a group of creatives, the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli. They also will honor American writer-director-producer George Lucas. Neither Studio Ghibli nor Lucas needs an introduction, but we will trumpet their accomplishments nonetheless!
Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by producer Toshii Suzuki and visual storytellers Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Takahata created animated features including Grave of the Fireflies (1988), the Annecy-winning Pom Poko (1994), and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013). Miyazaki created animated features including My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), the Academy Award®-winning Spirited Away (2001), and the Academy Award®-winning The Boy and the Heron (2023). The acclaimed studio gave birth to the Ghibli Museum in 2001 and Ghibli Park in 2022.
For more than five decades, Lucas has entertained and inspired audiences around the world, particularly with Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In addition to writing both series, Lucas directed A New Hope (1977), the earliest Star Wars release, as well the prequel trilogy: The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). In addition to creating films, Lucas was the visionary behind the innovative special effects company Industrial Light & Magic and the beloved animation studio Pixar.
Juries
The Feature Film Jury, which chooses the winners of the Palme d’Or and other top prizes, will be led by American screenwriter-director Greta Gerwig. Gerwig had already found fame with Lady Bird and Little Women before Barbie earned over $1.4 BILLION at the global box office, making it the biggest blockbuster of 2023 and the 14th highest-grossing film in history.
The other members of the Feature Film Jury are Ebru Ceylan, Lily Gladstone, Eva Green, Nadine Labaki, Juan Antonio Bayona, Pierfrancesco Favino, Kore-eda Hirokazu, and Omar Sy.
The Un Certain Regard Jury, which gives awards for arthouse films, will be led by Canadian director Xavier Dolan. Since 2009, when Dolan was only 20 years old, his films have competed six times at Cannes. He won the Jury Prize (third place) for Mommy in 2014 and the Grand Prize of the Jury (second place) for It’s Only the End of the World in 2016.
The other members of the Un Certain Regard Jury are Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy.
The Caméra d’Or Jury, which gives the Caméra d’Or award for the most outstanding debut, will be jointly led by French actress Emmanuelle Béart and Congolese-Belgian director Baloji. Béart has appeared in Manon of the Spring (1986), A Heart in Winter (1992), Mission: Impossible (1996), 8 Women (2002), and numerous other films. Baloji won the New Voice Prize at Cannes for his first feature film, Omen, in 2023.
The other members of the Caméra d’Or Jury are Gilles Porte, Pascal Buron, Zoé Wittock, and Nathalie Chifflet.
The Short Films and La Cinef Jury, which selects the winners of the Short Film Palme d’Or and three prizes for student films, will be led by Belgian actress Lubna Azabal. Her credits include Loin (2001), Body of Lies (2008), Incendies (2010), and The Blue Caftan (2022).
The other members of the Short Films and La Cinef Jury are Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, Paolo Moretti, Claudine Nougaret, and Vladimir Perišić.
Films
The festival will open with The Second Act by French writer-director Quentin Dupieux, screening out of competition. A master of surrealist and absurdist cinema, Dupieux is known for Steak (2007), Reality (2014), Mandibles (2020), and Smoking Causes Coughing (2022), which was screened at Cannes in 2022. In The Second Act, Florence and two prospective lovers try to sort out several misunderstandings during a meeting with Florence’s father.
After the opener, 22 films will compete for the Palme d’Or. They include titles by established celebrities and new talents.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which has been in the works for 40 years, depicts New York City sharing the fate of ancient Rome. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness reunites Poor Things stars Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe for another quirky comedy, this time with a contemporary setting. As a final example, Agathe Riedinger’s debut film, Wild Diamond, is about a 19-year-old woman who craves fame on reality television.
The 18-film lineup for Un Certain Regard will begin with When the Light Breaks by Icelandic writer-director Rúnar Rúnarsson. His most acclaimed film, Volcano (2011), follows a retiree who must care for his sick wife while making amends with his children. When the Light Breaks returns to the theme of grief, but from the perspective of a young woman.
Outside the competition lineups, audiences will be treated to highly anticipated world premieres. Two films, both described as sagas, caught our eye.
On Wednesday, May 15, Australian writer-director George Miller will show his prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, titled Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The new film explores the backstory of Imperator Furiosa (originally played by Charlize Theron), who rescues a group of women from a depraved warlord’s harem in Fury Road. In the prequel, a younger Furiosa (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) braves the dangerous wasteland to return to her home, the Green Place. We can’t wait to see the film in IMAX!
On Sunday, May 19, American multihyphenate Kevin Costner will show the first installment of his epic Western, titled Horizon: An American Saga. Although Costner is primarily known as an actor, whose credits include Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Yellowstone (2018-2022), he won the Academy Award® for Best Director in 1991 for another Western, Dances with Wolves. Over 30 years since his outstanding directorial debut, Costner will release Horizon in four chapters, beginning in summer 2024.
Vive le Cinéma – and Enjoy the Festival!
Can you tell we’re excited for the Cannes Film Festival? It is one of the earliest opportunities to glimpse films that might make history in 2024.
A warm reception at Cannes can anticipate a film’s success months later at the Academy Awards®. Last year, nine titles selected for Cannes received Oscar® nominations. Two of them, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, won Academy Awards®.
We expect this year’s selections for Cannes to meet wide acclaim. Please join us in thanking the festival organizers for another terrific program. Finally, let’s wish good luck to all the filmmakers at Cannes 2024!
