After last year’s cancellation due to the global health crisis, the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is set to take place July 6-17, with the announcement of its official lineup on May 28. Winner of the 2018 Grand Prix for BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee will serve as Jury President this year, becoming the first black filmmaker to hold the prestigious position. The festival will open with Leos Carax's Annette, a musical romance featuring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver, and will present Wes Anderson's celebrity-filled The French Dispatch. Other anticipated films include Sean Penn's Flag Day, Jane Campion's drama The Power of The Dog featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst, and Paul Schrader's thriller The Card Counterstarring Oscar Isaac and Willem Dafoe.
In the anticipation of this year's official line-up, Filmatique looks back to some of the exceptional films previously exhibited at Cannes, available to stream via our platform. The festival has showcased an outstanding number of groundbreaking films in the past years, including bold social critiques by directors such as Cristi Puiu, whose masterpiece The Death of Mr. Lazarescu received the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes in 2005 for its Kafkaesque portrayal of a dying man as he regresses from a world that consistently fails to take notice of him. Kleber Mendonça Filho received international acclaim and a Palme d'Or nomination for Aquarius, a richly detailed political commentary which delves into the social and racial turmoil plaguing Recife, one of Brazil's most unequal cities.
Additional Cannes favorites include Tony Manero, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín's black comedy about a man's obsession with Saturday Night Fever, showcased in Directors' Fortnight in 2007. Winner of the Jury Prize the same year, Carlos Reygadas's Silent Lightgained significant acclaim for his visually and emotionally vivid portrayal of a Mennonite community in Mexico, where a father's faith is tested after falling in love with another woman. Naomi Kawase's heartwarming Sweet Bean, which premiered in Cannes's Un Certain Regard section in 2015, evokes key themes such as tradition, impermanence, and the beauty of nature which have come to define the work of the leading Japanese director.
