Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) ascends the stairs of his fictional life on the poster for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, an homage to The Truman Show that serves to give this 75th edition of the festival an air of rebirth. From May 17 to 28, the most important film festival in the world recovers its usual dates after the pandemic; also the glamor of the red carpet and the brilliance of the stars that will parade through it.
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| Cannes 2022: the most anticipated films |
Vincent Lindon will act as President of the Official Selection Jury,“Vincent Lindon will chair the Cannes 2022 Jury”) where 21 titles will compete for the Palme d’Or. Some of them already know what it feels like to take home the award (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Cristian Mungiu, Ruben Östlund, the Dardenne brothers twice), others it is incredible that they still do not have it (Claire Denis, David Cronenberg, Arnaud Desplechin) and others are willing to leave their mark in the world’s largest showcase of auteur cinema.
In addition to the competition for the Palme d’Or, the non-competitive screenings (where everything from Baz Luhrmann 's Elvis biopic to Joseph Kosinski and Tom Cruise ‘s Top Gun: Maverick ) should not be overlooked, the Un Certain Regard section, the Cannes Classics program (with the restoration of La maman et la putain as the absolute headliner) or the parallel festivals that take place at the same time on the other side of the Croisette, such as the Directors’ Fortnight and the Critics’ Week.
Bearing all this mess of screens in mind, and how appetizing the different programming is for any cinema-loving palate, we have made a selection of the 20 most anticipated titles that can be seen at Cannes in the coming weeks. Count on many (most?) of them ending up on best-of-the-year lists.
“Aftersun” by Charlotte Wells
Cannes 2022: the most anticipated films
Critics Week. First feature by Scottish director Charlotte Wells, with Barry Jenkins in the production, which recalls through home video recordings the vacations of an 11-year-old girl with her father, played by Paul Mescal (Normal People), in Turkey at late 90’s.
‘Armageddon Time’ by James Gray
Competition. James Gray 's new collaboration with Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji (Ellis’s dream, Z, the lost city) to join the new trend among filmmakers around the world: a story of initiation in places of his youth, such as the New York of the 80s. Attention to the leading trio: Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.
‘As bestas’, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Cannes Premiere. The director of El Reino, Madre and Antiriotbios arrives at the festival’s non-competitive preview section with a co-production shot in Galicia starring the French Denis Menochet and Marina Foïs (but the one we always like to see is Luis Zahera). . A tourist couple arouses the suspicion of the inhabitants of a small village who have seen Straw Dogs too many times.
‘Broker’, by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Competition. After having won the Palme d’Or for A Family Affair (2018), the Japanese filmmaker returns to Cannes with a Korean production after having made a stop as completely French as The Truth (2019) -which, however, went to Venice- . Broker, about the abandonment of babies by poor families with the intention that more solvent ones can take care of the newborn, also marks the return to the Croisette of the iridescent Song Kang-ho, star of Parasites.
‘Chronique d’une liaison passagere’, by Emmanuel Mouret
Cannes Premiere. Sandrine Kiberlain, Vincent Macaigne and Georgia Scalliet star in the new sentimental entanglement of the director of The Things We Say, The Things We Do (2020): a single mother and a married man tied together in a purely sexual relationship with no future. Zero surprises with the plot, zero doubts that it will be the best of the festival.
‘Crimes of the Future’ by David Cronenberg
Cannes 2022: the most anticipated films
Competition. One of the most anticipated returns of Cannes 2022 also has the most coveted red carpet: Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen at the service of a current David Cronenberg who returns to body horror with a script that he had written decades ago (not to be confused with the long homonym that he made in 1970, in principle it has nothing to do with it). Impossible to resist.
‘Decision to Leave’ by Park Chan-wook
Competition. Another famous return: Park Chan-wook 's return to his native Korea with a story of detectives and gruesome crimes (it is impossible to ignore that some element of revenge must appear) that promises to keep everyone glued and vibrating in their seats. An extra attraction: Chinese actress Tang Wei (Desire, Danger, Long Journey Into Night) as the lead.
‘Don Juan’, by Serge Bozon
Cannes Premiere. A filmmaker as terrific as he is an acute cinephile, Serge Bozon once again collaborates with the brilliant Axelle Ropert on the screenplay, moving from Stevenson 's Madame Hyde (2017) to Molière with Don Juan. And it has an unbeatable pair of protagonists: Virginie Efira and Tahar Rahim.
‘The water’, by Elena López Riera
Cannes 2022: the most anticipated films
Directors’ Fortnight. The first feature film by Spanish director Elena López Riera stars Bárbara Lennie as the protagonist, leading a cast made up of non-professional actors and debutant Luna Pamies, who at 17 is already being hailed as a great revelation. She plays Ana, who lives with her mother (Lennie) and her grandmother in a house that the rest of her town regards with suspicion.
‘Frere et soeur’, by Arnaud Desplechin
Competition. New episode between the complicated relationship between Thierry Frémaux and Arnaud Desplechin, one of the best French filmmakers of recent decades, who has gone through all possible positions, elevations and dismissals at Cannes. This time he has an option for the Palme d’Or with the story of two brothers (Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud) in which Golshifteh Farahani also appears .
‘Fumer fait tousser’, by Quentin Dupieux
Cannes 2022: the most anticipated films
Out of competition. It has been a rare pleasure to watch Quentin Dupieux 's film evolve over the years, as he takes his wacky quips to more sophisticated and stupidly funny stages. In full swing, he has devised a group of super vigilantes with Power Rangers suits and self-styled tobacco forces among whom he has brought together the cream of the Franco- Belgian star system : Adèle Exarchopoulos, Vincent Lacoste, Anaïs Demoustier, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alain Chabat and Gilles Lellouche .
‘Hunt’ by Lee Jung-jae
Out of competition. The healthy habit of programming a Korean action movie every year at the festival’s Midnight Screenings includes in this edition the directorial debut of Lee Jung-jae, one of the protagonists of The Squid Game.
‘L’envol’, by Pietro Marcello
Directors’ Fortnight. The best Italian filmmaker of today (yes, much more than those others you are thinking of), who has just adapted Jack London in the magnificent Martin Eden (2019), has shot in the north of France the story of a girl fascinated by the promise a wizard made her when she was little: scarlet candles with the power to take her away from her village.
‘The Five Devils’, by Léa Mysius
Directors’ Fortnight. In addition to participating in the script for the film by Claire Denis that competes for the Palme d’Or (The Stars at Noon), the director of Ava (2017) has her second feature film in the Fortnight, a drama where a prisoner (Adèle Exarchopoulos) he returns to his sister’s house and changes his niece’s life.
‘Ródeo’, by Lola Quivoron
A Certain Regard. One of the festival’s most hyped first films: clandestine urban biker races with scenes of pure adrenaline courtesy of action specialist Mathieu Lardot, a veteran of risking his skin on two wheels in Hollywood productions such as the Bourne sagas and Mission: Impossible.
“Showing Up” by Kelly Reichardt
Competition. The reunion between Kelly Reichardt and her faithful collaborator Michelle Williams will tell how an artist finds inspiration in the chaos of her life before facing an exhibition that may change her career, but frankly the plot (a new Reichardt collaboration with writer Jonathan Raymond) we could not care less to consider it one of the most anticipated films of the festival.
‘The Stars at Noon’, by Claire Denis
Competition. Another tough contender for the Palme d’Or: the French filmmaker directs Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Danny Ramirez, Benny Safdie and John C. Reilly in the adaptation of a Denis Johnson novel set in Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution. Denis’s second collaboration with the exquisite cinematographer Éric Gautier, with whom he made Avec amour et acharnement, awarded this year at the Berlin Film Festival.
‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’, by George Miller
Out of competition. Tilda Swinton is the protagonist of the fantastic romance with which the director of Mad Max: Fury Road returns to the fray, Idris Elba the genie of the lamp who agrees to grant three wishes, whose terms are negotiated by both in a room of hotel in Istanbul. New collaboration on the soundtrack with Junkie XL.
‘Tourment sur les îles’, by Albert Serra
Competition. The ineffable Catalan filmmaker rises to the first competitive division at Cannes after spending years astonishing festival attendees with films such as Honor de cavalleria (2006) or Liberté (2019). His new film (internationally titled Pacifiction) is set in Tahiti and tells of the romance between a French diplomat and a Polynesian writer.
‘A beautiful morning’, by Mia Hansen-Løve
Directors’ Fortnight. The masterful French filmmaker directs Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupaud in an adulterous romance with a drama about senile dementia in the background. Assured that at some point there will be tears to wipe.
