CANNES2025 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

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CANNES 2025 - first overview.
SOURCE (https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/press-releases/the-films-of-the-official-selection-2025).
The 78th edition runs May 13-24, 2025.
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Opening Film: PARTIR UN JOUR by Amélie BONNIN | 1st film – Out of Competition

In Competition
THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME by Wes ANDERSON
EDDINGTON by Ari ASTER
JEUNES MÈRES by Jean-Pierre et Luc DARDENNE
ALPHA by Julia DUCOURNAU
RENOIR by HAYAKAWA Chie
THE HISTORY OF SOUND by Oliver HERMANUS
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE by Hafsia HERZI
SIRAT by Oliver LAXE
NEW WAVE by Richard LINKLATER
RESURECTION (Bi Gan)
TWO PROSECUTORS by Sergei LOZNITSA
FUORI by Mario MARTONE
O AGENTE SECRETO (THE SECRET AGENT) by Kleber MENDONÇA FILHO
DOSSIER 137 by Dominik MOLL
UN SIMPLE ACCIDENT by Jafar PANAHI
THE MASTERMIND by Kelly REICHARDT
EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC by Tarik SALEH
SOUND OF FALLING by Mascha SCHILINSKI
ROMERÍA by Carla SIMÓN
SENTIMENTAL VALUE by Joachim TRIER
NOUVELE VAGUE (Richard Linklater)

Un Certain Regard
LA MISTERIOSA MIRADA DEL FLAMENCO by Diego CÉSPEDES | 1st film
(THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO)
MÉTÉORS by Hubert CHARUEL
MY FATHER’S SHADOW by Akinola DAVIES JR | 1st film
L’INCONNU DE LA GRANDE ARCHE by Stéphane DEMOUSTIER
URCHIN by Harris DICKINSON | 1st film
HOMEBOUND by Neeraj GHAYWAN
TÔI YAMANAMINO HIKARI (A PALE VIEW OF HILLS) by ISHIKAWA Kei
ELEANOR THE GREAT by Scarlett JOHANSSON | 1st film
KARAVAN by Zuzana KIRCHNEROVA | 1st film
PILLION by Harry LIGHTON | 1st film
AISHA CAN’T FLY AWAY by Morad MOSTAFA | 1st film
ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA by Arab et Tarzan NASSER
THE PLAGUE by Charlie POLINGER | 1st film
PROMISED SKY by Erige SEHIRI
LE CITTÀ DI PIANURA by Francesco SOSSAI
(THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD)
TESTA O CROCE? (HEADS OR TAILS?) by Matteo ZOPPIS, Alessio RIGO DE RIGHI

Out of Competition
COLOURS OF TIME by Cédric KLAPISCH
LA FEMME LA PLUS RICHE DU MONDE by Thierry KLIFA
HIGHEST 2 LOWEST by Spike LEE
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING by Christopher MCQUARRIE
VIE PRIVÉE by Rebecca ZLOTOWSKI

Midnight Screenings
DALLOWAY by Yann GOZLAN
EXIT 8 by KAWAMURA Genki
FENG LIN HUO SHAN by MAK Juno
(SONS OF THE NEON NIGHT)

Cannes Premiere
AMRUM by Fatih AKIN
SPLITSVILLE by Michael Angelo COVINO
LA OLA (THE WAVE) de Sebastián LELIO
CONNEMARA by Alex LUTZ
ORWELL: 2+2=5 by Raoul PECK
DAS VERSCHWINDEN DES JOSEF MENGELE (THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOSEF MENGELE) by Kirill SEREBRENNIKOV

Special Screenings
BONO: STORIES OF SURRENDER by Andrew Dominik
TELL HER THAT I LOVE HER by Romane BOHRINGER
A MAGNIFICENT LIFE by Sylvain CHOMET
Juliette Binoche will preside over the Competition Jury of the 78th Festival de Cannes. Robert De Niro will receive an Honorary Palme d’or. Tom Cruise will be back on the Croisette with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING, debuting out of competition. Spike Lee ditto (for HIGHEST 2 LOWEST) with the star, Denzel Washington. Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Julia Ducournau, Kelly Reichardt in Competition. Jodie Foster will be there, starring in Rebecca Zlotkowski's Out of Competition VIE PRIVÉE; Josh O'Connor, leading two films in comoetition with Kellly Reichardt's heist movie THE MASTERMIND and Oliver Hermanus' gay romance THE HISTORY OF SOUND alongside Paul Mescal.

See the comment on this year at Cannes ("France’s Love Affair With Hollywood Continues, and Vice Versa, in U.S.-Heavy Cannes Lineup") from Peter Debruge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/columns/cannes-film-festival-selection-announced-critic-analysis-1236365820/). See comments on the Competition lineup from The Oscar Expert bros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzDQ5dBf2pA&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) (brother bro says he will be there to the end). They single out Joachim Trier's SENTIMENTAL VALUE (they love Trier and the WORST PERSON actress Renate Reinsve stars) and Mascha Schilinski's much buzzed-about and pre-sold SOUND OF FALLING as the two top Competition contenders this year.

[Chris Knipp]

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Sound of Falling

There is special buzz about the new German-language film SOUND OF FALLING (German: In die Sonne schauen, lit. 'Staring at the sun'), the sophomore effort of director Mascha Schilenski, one of the more buzz-worthy items in Cannes Competition this year. Reportedly MK2's outlay was significant.

Prmise. A remote German farm harbors generations of secrets. The film follows four women from different historical periods whose lives are subtly interconnected. Each spends part of her childhood or youth on the same four-sided farmstead in the Altmark region. As they move through their respective presents, traces of the past gradually emerge.


“We were simply blown away when we saw Sound of Falling. Mascha Schilinski’s vision is so bold and visceral, this signals the arrival of an exceptional new voice in cinema,” said Fionnuala Jamison of MK2 films. The filmmaker made her debut in 2017 with DARK BLUE GIRL.

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Some of MK2 Films's most famous titles include ANATOMY OF A FALL, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, and COLD WAR. Other notable films include Variety's ATLANTICS and HOUSE ARREST. I remember how dominant the label is from moviegoing in Paris.

[Chris Knipp]

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FROM SAEED ROUSTAEE'S WOMAN AND CHILD

Cannes 2025 roster additions

Lynne Ramsay’s long-awaited new film, DIE, MY LOVE, the adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel, has been announced as a late addition to this year’s Cannes Competition lineup as has Saeed Roustaee’s WOMAN AND CHILD. Ramsay’s first for eight years, DIE, MY LOVE stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. An adaptation of a 2017 novel by Ariana Harwicz, DIE, MY LOVE is a dark comedy thriller that concerns a new mother in the French countryside who develops postpartum depression and enters psychosis, a woman "battling her demons: embracing exclusion yet wanting to belong, craving freedom while feeling trapped, yearning for family life yet wanting to burn the entire house down," goes a summary.

Saeed Roustaee’s WOMAN AND CHILD, the Letterboxd summary goes, is a "contemporary family drama of revenge and forgiveness" that "stars Parinaz Izadyar (LAW OF TEHRAN) as a widowed nurse struggling with her rebellious son. Tensions reach a peak during the betrothal ceremony with her new boyfriend, but when a tragic accident occurs, she finds herself confronting feelings of betrayal as she seeks justice." Roustaee (or Roustayi: سعید روستایی) received the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes in 2022 for LEILA'S BROTHERS, presented in Competition.

Another high-profile Cannes 2025 addition, in the Un Certain Regard section, is Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, which stars Imogen Poots, a passion project adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir THE CHRONOLGY OF WATER. Also in Un Certain Regard are two other A-list actors' directorial debuts, ELEANOR THE GREAT from Scarlett Johannsson starring June Squibb and concerning a 90-year-old Floridian woman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old student in New York City; and Harris Dickenson's URCHIN,featuring Frank Dillane (son of Stephen) as a homeless person struggling to survive in contemporary London.

Ethan Coen’s HONEY DON'T! has been added to the Midnight Screenings. It is the second in his "lesbian B-movie trilogy" after last year’s DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS. For this Margaret Qualley returns alongside Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans.

Also added: Cannes Directors' Fortnight: YES by Nadav Lapid.
Cannes Frontières Platform: SKIN SIDE UP by Robert Ten Eyck.

[Chris Knipp]

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ROBERT PATTINSON IN DIE, MY LOVE

Cannes additions - fuller list

In Competition
DIE, MY LOVE by Lynne RAMSEY
WOMAN AND CHILD by Saeed ROUSTAEE

Un Certain Regard
LOVE ME TENDER by Anna CAZENAVE CAMBET
UN POETA by Simón MESA SOTO
O RISO E A FACA (I ONLY REST IN THE STORM) by Pedro PINHO
THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER by Kristen STEWART | 1st film

Cannes Premiere
LOVE ON TRIAL by Kōji FUKADA
ÁSTIN SEM EFTIR ER (THE LOVE THAT REMAINS) by Hlynur PÁLMASON
MAGALHÃES by Lav DIAZ

Midnight Screenings
LE ROI SOLEIL by Vincent Maël CARDONA
HONEY DON’T by Ethan COEN

Special Screenings
AMÉLIE ET LA MÉTAPHYSIQUE DES TUBES by Maïlys VALLADE & Liane-Cho HAN | 1st film
MAMA by Or SINAI | 1st film
ARCO by Ugo BIENVENU | 1st film
QUI BRILLE AU COMBAT (THE WONDERERS) by Joséphine JAPY | 1st film[/SIZE]

And as part of a tribute to Pierre Richard
L’HOMME QUI A VU L’OURS QUI A VU L’HOMME by Pierre RICHARD

Cannes Directors' Fortnight
YES by Nadav Lapid

Cannes Frontières Platform
SKIN SIDE UP by Robert Ten Eyck

SOURCE (https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/press-releases/additions-to-the-selection-of-the-78th-festival-de-cannes/)

[Chris Knipp]

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Cannes 2025 Directors' Fortnight

Short and Medium Length Films
+10K by Gala Hernández López
BEFORE THE SEA FORGETS by Ngọc Duy Lê
THE BODY by Louris van de Geer
BREAD WILL WALK (Le pain se lève) by Alex Boya
CŒUR BLEU (Blue Heart) by Samuel Suffren
KARMASH (کرمش) by Aleem Bukhari
LOYNES by Dorian Jespers
LA MORT DU POISSON (Death of the Fish) by Eva Lusbaronian
NERVOUS ENERGY by Eve Liu
WHEN THE GEESE FLEW by Arthur Gay

Feature Films
ENZO by Laurent Cantet, directed by Robin Campillo - opening film
AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) by Anne Émond
BRAND NEW LANDSCAPE (見はらし世代) by Yuiga Danzuka - first feature film
CLASSE MOYENNE (The Party's Over!) de Antony Cordier
DANGEROUS ANIMALS by Sean Byrne
LA DANSE DES RENARDS (Wild Foxes) by Valéry Carnoy - first feature film
L'ENGLOUTIE (The Girl in the Snow) by Louise Hémon - first feature film
LES FILLES DÉSIR (The Girls We Want) by Prïncia Car - first feature film
GIRL ON EDGE (Hua yang shao nv sha ren shi jian) by Jinghao Zhou – first feature film
INDOMPTABLES by Thomas Ngijol
KOKUHO by Lee Sang-il
LUCKY LU by Lloyd Lee Choi - first feature film
MILITANTROPOS by Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova & Simon Mozgovyi
MIROIRS No. 3 by Christian Petzold
LA MORT N’EXISTE PAS (Death Does Not Exist) by Félix Dufour-Laperrière
THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE (Mamlaket al-Qasab) by Hasan Hadi - first feature film
QUE MA VOLONTÉ SOIT FAITE (Her Will Be Done) by Julia Kowalski
YES de Nadav Lapid
SORRY, BABY by Eva Victor – first feature film - closing film. SOURCE (https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/news/the-2025-selection)

Comments
Opening and Closing Films:
."Enzo" opens the Fortnight, a film directed by Robin Campillo after his friend and co-writer, Laurent Cantet, passed away. "Sorry, Baby" closes the event, a drama produced by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight).
Christian Petzold's "Miroirs No. 3": This film, starring Paula Beer, follows an aspiring pianist whose life is disrupted by a miraculous survival from a car crash.
Nadav Lapid's "Yes!" ,which received the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, follows a jazz musician and his wife who struggle to make ends meet while performing for the elite.
Other Notable Films: "Militantropos," a documentary about the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Thomas Cailley, the first Prix Alpine winner, will receive his award during the closing ceremony.

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FROM CHRISTIAN PETZOLD'S MIRRORS NO. 3

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES first day, May 13, 2025

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The Cannes Film Festival kicked off on the evening Tuesday, May 13th, 2025, with the opening film being PARTIR UN JOUR/LEAVE ONE DAY, by Amelie Bonnin. The festival also featured a special Honorary Palme d'Or lifetime achievement award presentation to Robert De Niro. The opening night was hosted by French actor Laurent Lafitte, who will also host the closing ceremony.

Laurent Lafitte of the Comédie Française is impressive in the current Netflix series about notorious French business genius and would be polical giant Bernard Tapie, "CLASS ACT," known in French simply as "TAPIE."

Jury President Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche will be the president of the competition jury.

Accepting an honorary Palme d'Or at the opening ceremony of the festival, Di Niro raiied against the US's "philistine president". His speech and Leonardo Di Capro's grateful introduction, acknowledging how Di Niro's nod got him his first important film role, are described fully in an article in Variety. (https://variety.com/2025/film/festivals/robert-de-niro-slams-trump-philistine-president-cannes-1236385272/)

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[Chris Knipp]

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JULIETTE ARMANET AND BASTIEN BOUILLON IN LEAVE ONE DAY

OPENING NIGHT FILM AT CANNES 2025: PARTIR UN JOUR/LEAVE ONE DAY (AURÉLIE BONNIN)

TRAILER (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9ih44g)

Opening night films are usually lilght out-of-competition material and this one is no different - or is it? This one is a debut feature, said to be the first ever to be the Cannes opener, based on the filmmaker's 2021 César-winning short, and it looks like a real down-to-earth charmer. It has has been described as a "nostalgic" and "whimsical" musical about a chef at the crossroads of her career and personal life who goes back home to the provinces in response to a family crisis. She decides her father's heart attack requires her to take her gourmet cooking back home, where her father runs a very unsophisticated joint, verry old fashioned and kind of like a trucker's pit stop.

Opening night might b e a doomed slot, but Damon Wise wrote in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2025/05/leave-one-day-review-cannes-opening-film-1236394893/) that this one is "a stealth charmer," that "will mean much, much more to the French (who, after all, live there), evoking memories of a country that’s fast disappearing while, at the same time, being fully cognizant of its evolving, multicultural present." Complex and referential for French pepole, it uses its musical choices "playfully and cleverly," Wise wrote, the songs intentionally unpolished in presentation, the story down to earth and endearing. The AlloCiné press rating is a perfectly good 3.9 - 78%. That's in fact the same score as was awarded to Léos Carax's 2021 Cannes opener ANNETTE, also a musical, but more high-profile,, Since it starred Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard and had an ultra-hip director. This one Wise says is "a joy," completely unorigial but satisfying and not too long.

The protagonist of PARTIR UN JOUR, Cécile, is played by singer Juliette Armanet, best known for performing John Lennon’s "Imagine" at the opening of the Paris Olympics last year. Cécile is not only about to open a Paris restaurant with her boyfriend, Sofiane (Tewfik Jallab), but just got a positive pregnancy test, but at the boyfiend's urging she goes back home, whre her father, Gérard (François Rollin), after his third heart attack, has returned to working at the family restaurant, a humbly entitled "Pit Stop" Cécile has conspicuously made fun of in the past on a national TV cooking compettion show. A dog named Bocuse still has the run of its kitchen. The songs aren't as sophisticated as EMILIA PEREZ'S, Wise says, but are a whole lot more engaging. There's a guy back home, Raphaël (Bastien Bouillon), who's in love with Cécile, still unconsumated, who now wars for her attention with Sofiane.

It's not original, but "Crucially," Wise says, LEAVE ONE DAY "has heart, capturing a sense of time having passed and an optimism for the time to come." (Others were less favorable, some very much less favorable, like Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/13/partir-un-jour-leave-one-day-review-foodie-musical-is-an-undercooked-turkey#:~:text=This%20bafflingly%20underpowered%2C %20muddled%20film,transform%20into%20romanticism%2 0or%20idealism.), who called LEAVE ONE DAY "bafflingly underpowered" and totally panned it, calling it an"undercooked turkey" and giving it one out of five strs.)

[Chris Knipp]

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MEGAN NORHAM COSTARS WITH FRANK DILLANE IN HARRIS DICKINSON'S URCHIN

CANNES 2025 DAY TWO. On day two of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, May 14th, the festival featured several photo calls and premieres, including those for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING, with Tom Cruise and Hannah Waddingham. Upcomoimng events include the premieres of Kristen Stewart's directorial debut THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER May 16 and Harris Dickinson's URCHIN May 17, as well as various press junkets and parties.

Megan Norham, 30, shown above, costars with Frank Dillane in hot actor Harris Dickinson's directorial debut URCHIN, which premiers at Cannes May 17.. A French-born actress with an English father, Norham "opens herself up to what HOLLYWOOD REPOERTER calls "a shiny new audience" with the English-language URCHIN. “As a French woman with an English father, I would love to continue shooting and thinking in English," she told the magazine. "It’s a part of me that I can’t express in France." Let's see how the film is received.

Harris Dickinson's exciting filmography (BEACH RATS, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, THE IRON CLAW, BABYGIRL) makes one quite hopeful he'll be astute behind the camera as he has been in front of it. URCHIN is about a homeless man trying to turn his life around. Kristin Stewart's feature dicrectorial debut CHRONOLOGY OF WATER may draw more attention due to her greater exposure as an actress over a longer time starting with her TWILIGHT fame and moviing like Robert Pattinson to serious material with prestige directors (CERTAIN WOMEN, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA, PERSONAL SHOPPER, SPENCER). Stewart's LIDIA, shot in Latvia starring Imogen Potts, adapts the "eponymous 2011 memoir, by Lidia Yuknavitch, who writes movingly about her childhood trauma, alcoholism, and the transformative power of writing," according to VANITY FAIR (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/kristen-stewart-chronology-of-water-directorial-debut-cannes?srsltid=AfmBOopK-AWiYcE_KQDdRMw-l0hGs3vGaLavg3WPPmgh3L1e8VSZ2AKd). It's reported by Stewart herself to be a visceral, intense story featuring quick cuts and an immersive sound design. It premieres at Cannes May 16.

Three day two films: TWO PROSECUTORS, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, ENZO.

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TWO PROSECUTORS (SERGEI LOZNITSA)

TWO PROSECUTORS (Sergei Loznitza) is a saga of 1930's Stalinist Soviet bureaucratic evil and the life of gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, which Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/two-prosecutors-review-a-petrifying-portrait-of-stalinist-insurrection) gives five out of five stars. In her VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/two-prosecutors-review-1236397478/) review Jessica Kiang, who calls the film "darkly absurdist," points out Laznitsa is more restrained and literal this time to offset the negative effect the director, renowned for his documentaries, created with two slightly too playful last reatures. "This is not the kind of movie that hinges on abrupt reveals or gratuitous twists. Indeed, the banal predictability of Kornyev’s slowly mounting humiliations and disillusionments is very much the point," Kiang writes. Jordan Mintzer in HOLLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/two-prosecutors-review-sergei-loznitsa-1236210813/) points out that Loznitza "has seamlessly shifted between fiction (My Joy, In the Fog, Donbass) and documentary (Maidan, The Event, Babi Yar)," and suggests this film is a dark metaphor for what'going on in Russia today. He comments that it is "not always an easy sit, creeping along from one suffocating situation to the next." It might be made to feel relevant by the threat of authoritarianism in our own country.

[Chris Knipp]

DAY TWO, CONTINUED.

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TOM CRUISE ACCEPTS ACCOLADES ON THE CROISETTE FOR MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING (Christopher McQuarrie)

My question might be How does he have hair like that? but it's foolish to ask: he's a big Hollywood star, is why, and after all, he's "only" sixty-two. This is his eighhth and putatively last MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, premiered today at Cannes out of competition, in which, as Peter Bradshaw puts it in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-review-tom-cruise-wildly-entertaining-adventure), signing a five-out-of-five-star review, "his maverick agent Ethan Hunt takes on the ultimate in AI evil." Cannes has given Cruise a welcoming showplace for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE for years and now gives him a chance to bow out in style.

So, a "Wildly entertaining adventure," Bradshaw writes. DEADLINE, (https://deadline.com/gallery/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-cannes-red-carpet-gallery/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-red-carpet-the-78th-annual-cannes-film-festival-6/) believe it or not, published nearly forty big photographs today in a whole issue dedicated to the Croisette scene for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE today. The red carpet included cast members Eddie Hamilton, Hayley Atwell, Greg Tarzan Davis, Angela Bassett, star Tom Cruise, Pom Klementieff, director Christopher McQuarrie, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales and Erik Jendresen.

The film follows Cruise’s Ethan Hunt who now holds the key to confronting the formidable AI known as the Entity, his most perilous adversary yet. He must gather his team to locate the sunken Russian submarine containing the Entity’s source code, the key to its destruction. Damon Wise of DEADLINE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-review-tom-cruise-cannes-1236394481/), whom we were quoting yesterday being gentle and appreciative about the Cannes opener LEAVE ONE DAY, says FINAL RECOKONING works as a stand-alone feature despite its coming as number 8 in a franchise. THE TELEGRAPH says in this film Cruise "pulls off his most deranged stunt yet." Wise hints Cruise is not done with doing sequels. ESQUIRE describes the movie as "vast" in scale and full of "tense, dense, and stressful" sequences. This is director Christopher McQuarie's fourth MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, all of which he also wrote.

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NEWCOMER ELOY POHU IN ENZO

ENZO (Laurent Cantet, Robin Campillo) - Directors' Fortnight

The Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalizateurs) opener, in equal contrast to the dour TWO PROSECUTORS and the wild actioner MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, is a subtle French coming-of-ager written and directed by a specially close, fraught French team of collaborators. Cantet died of cancer last year at 63, so this is his last film. It is rendered specially interesting by having been completed by lifelong friend and collaborator Robin Campillo (who is gay) when Cantet (who is straight) fell gravely ill and had to give up the prospect of directing. Cantet was a much discussed Cannes Palme d'Or winner in 2008 for THE CLASS/ENTRE LES MURS, and is also known for L'ATELIER/THE WORKSHOP and RESOURCES HUMAINES/HUMAN RESOURCES. Campillo is known for THE CLASS, EASTERN BOYS, and 120 BPM.

Peter Debruge reviews ENZO for VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/enzo-review-robin-campillo-laurent-cantet-1236393807/); Jordan Mintzer reviews it for THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/enzo-review-robin-campillo-laurent-cantet-1236211933/). ENZO is about a boy ill at ease, as it were, with being at ease. He's a rich kid who has rejected the conventional educatonal path and is working at a blue collar construction job. There, he gradually falls in love with his decade-older Ukraininan coworker Vlad (fellow newcomer Maksym Slivinskyi). Peter Debruge suggests ENZO doesn't go as far sexually as Guadagnino's CALL ME BY YOUR NAME but its "ambiguous subtext proves infinitely more fascinating, leaving everyone who sees it with a different interpretation." Enzo's parents are played by a binational team, the Italian Pierfrancesco Favino and French Élodie Bouchez. The film ENZO may end by being ambiguous, but its dual directorship and fraught creation seem to give it an additional layered meaning. (It has a mixed Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/enzo/) of 71%: Debruge, Guffman, and Bradshaw rate it very highlly, but Mitzer, Romney, and Ellwood have reservations.)

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LAURENT CANTET (1961-2024)

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES 2025 DAY THREE

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LÉA DRUCKER AND SOLAN MACHADO-GRANER IN DOMINIK MOLL'S DOSSIER 137


CASE 137 (Dominik Moll): Competition

Dominik Moll's CASE 137 (DOSSIER 137) is a riveting police procedural in which Léa Drucker is superb as a "dogged inspector" investigating an "egregious case of riot police misconduct" involving a "gilet jaune" or yellow-vest demonstrator that makes a "starkly effective Cannes competition entry," said Guy Lodge in his VARIETY review (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/case-137-review-1236398661/) of this first French Cannes Competition film today. German-born French director Dominik Moll has won Césars, the top French film awards more than once and produced some memorable films, like LEMMING, WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY, and THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH. It was just last year that Moll swept the Césars for THE NIGHT OF THE 12th (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5104), a compulsively gripping police procedural about a murder investigation where the killer is not found. I reviewed it as part of the 2023 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center. Léa Drucker was just seen playing a married woman who has a sexual affair with a teenager in Catherine Breillat's bold, hedonistic film LAST SUMMER (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5413\). Lodge suggests CASE 137 will play equally well both locally and internatIonally just as MOll's NIGHT OF THE 12TH did, given the "universal resonance and topicality of its skeptical stance regarding the police." Here it's an investigation where a cop has cracked the skull of a demonstrator. It's even colder and more procedural than Moll's last. The procedure is dry but works smoothly; the pleasure is in seeing it worked out. The final finding is that "the issue is systemic," says the PLAYLIST review (https://theplaylist.net/case-137-review-dominik-molls-subdued-police-procedural-has-a-sting-in-its-tail-cannes-20250515/) by Elena Lazic. Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/15/dossier-137-review-tense-gilets-jaunes-thriller-divides-cops-loyalties-over-police-brutality) explains the specifics: this is a case of "the police’s trigger-happy use of the LBD gun: the lanceur de balle de défense or “'flash ball' gun which (deafeningly) fires vicious rubber bullets." He said the film was a bit "programmatic" but gave it 3 out of 5 stars.


Most Anticipated Films: SENTIMENTAL VALUE, EDDINGTON and DIE MY LOVE. Last year they were FLOW, ANORA and THE SUBSTANCE.

[Chris Knipp]

A CANNES 2025 CRITICAL HEADLINER: SOUND OF FALLING

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FEMALE GENERATIONS PASS ON TRAUMA IN SOUIND OF FALLING

SOUND OF FALLING (Mascha Schilinski). Competition.

Summary: A remote German farm harbors generations of secrets. Four women, separated by decades but united by trauma, uncover the truth behind its weathered walls.. Widely admired, a sensation, this film "portrait of budding womanhood and rural strife through the ages," Jordan Mintzer in THE HOLLYWOOD REPOORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/sound-of-falling-review-mascha-schilinski-1236214409/) says is like no other film he's ever seen before, " a transfixing chronicle" and "a cinematic. tone poem." The GUARDIAN's Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/sound-of-falling-review-cannes-film-festival#:~:text=Here%20is%20a%20mysterious,neurot ic%20symptoms%20of%20the%20repressed.) calls it "a mysterious and uncanny prose-poem of guilt, shame and yearning in 20th-century Germany, and the 21st" in which "intergenerational trauma and genetic memories, visions and experiences suppressed and handed on to descendants and grandchildren" come back "as neurotic symptoms of the repressed." He sees an affinity with Michael Haneke's THE WHITE RIBBON in this GDR tale of long suffering for nought in being "something like a ghost story or even a folk-horror." Wendy Ide in SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sound-of-falling-review-trauma-seeps-through-a-century-of-womens-lives-in-rural-germany/5204756.article) calls it "a work of thrilling ambition." Damon Wise in DEADLINE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/sound-of-falling-review-mascha-schilinski-cannes-film-festival-1236397207/) calls it "a masterclass in thrilling, unnerving brilliance." The headline of Guy Lodge's VARIETY review (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/sound-of-falling-review-1236397013/) is "The surprise package of this year's Cannes competition is an astonishingly poised and ambitious second feature from the German writer-director, steeped in sadness and mystery." Not much question that THE SOUND OF FALLING is a headliner for a top Cannes award this year. Guy Lodge says it's "a shattering, century-spanning tapestry of female unrest" that shoots Mascha Schilinski into the big leagues." There is already a Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/sound-of-falling/) rating:91% based on 11 reviews.

Actually, the Jury Grid has put SOUND OF FALLING on a par with Mendoça Filho's THE SECRET AGENT AT 2.8, with Loznnitsa's TWO PROSECUTORS topping the list at day six with 3.0. Linkater's NOUVELLE VAGUE got 2.7, and DIE, MY LOVE, RENOIOR, and SIRAT all got 2.5.

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ANOTHER STILL FROM SOUND OF FALLLING

[Chris Knipp]

TALK SURROUNDING CANNES

Beside the films and the awards, there is also the talk. Notably Robert Di Niro used his reception of an honorary Palme d'Or (bestowed by Leonardo Di Caprio) to express his condemnation of Donald Trump and everything he represents. "Interesting timing," as Competition Jury President Juliette Binoche put it, occurred when as the festival got under way, a double verdict of sexual harrassment was declared against the notorious abuser of women and of his power Gérard Depardieu, France's most famous and proliifc film actor, signalling an industry-wide problem. He received a suspended prison sentence of 18 months. So he has been lastingly shamed and Binoche declared that indeed, he has lost his status, if he ever had one, of monstre sacré (sacred monster), a French term meaning a popular figure who is above criticism. Clearly he is disgraced, honoring the twenty women who have come forward to accuse the 76-year-old actor. Honteux !

[Chris Knipp]

EDDIINGTON (Ari Aster) - Competition

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JOAQUIN PHOENIX, LEFT,IN EDDINGTON

TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIpxO4KRV98&ab_channel=A24)

Aster disturbed audiences with HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMER and now again with a seemingly mondane setting: the year 2020. In May of that year, his new movie EDDINGTON focuses a standoff between a small-town conservative sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), and the liberal mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) and the powder keg of hostilities that follows when neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico when the liberal calls for masks and mandates following the outbreak of pandemic.There's a complication over Cross’s wife (Emma Stone). There is standard contemporary American politics and hostialities over Black Lives Matter, with teenage activists training their cellphone cameras on the conservative sheriff. Tensions lead to a series of deaths. Austen Butler is also in the cast. If this sounds "bafflingly dull", that's what Peter Bradshaw calls it, giving it two out of five stars. The Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/eddington/) is 63%. So check off that anticipated Cannes film? But it's an A24 film and does have an interesting cast and Bradshaw is English: maybe Americans will react more strongly.

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IMOGEN POTTS AND KRISTEN STEWART, LEFT, AT THE CANNES PREMIERE OF THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER

THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER (Kristen Stewart) - Un Certain Regard

The topic is an Olympic swimming hopeful who flees her abusive home via a Texas scholarship. After losing it to addiction, she studies writing under Ken Kesey in Oregon. Through writing, family, and self-discovery, she overcomes her troubled past. Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-chronology-of-water-review-kristen-stewart-1236400138/) says Stewart's directorial debut is "a stirring drama of abuse and salvation, told with poetic passion." All agree that Imogen Potts shines in this unconventional adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir. So, at least a success and boost for Kristen Stewart, whether or not a Cannes prize-winner.


Premieres today included LA PETITE DERRIÈRE by Hafsia Herzi, THE NEW WAVE by Sebastián Lelio, BONO: STORIES OF SURRENDER by Andrew Dominik, and SONS OF THE NEON NIGHT by Juno Mak. Earlier pressers and photocalls included SIRAT BY Oliver Laxe, DOSSIER 137 by Dominik Moll, plus ARCO, AMRU,M, THE PLAGUE and THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE and THE FLAMINGO. There is also Scarlett Johansson's ELEANOR THE GREAT, starring 95-year-old screen favorite June Squibb and URCHIN by BABYGIRL star Harris Dickinson.

LA PETITE DERRIÈRE by Hafsia Herzi - Competition

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NADIA MELITTI IN LA PETITE DERRIÈRE

Fatima Daas confided to Libération: In 2020, the writer arrived on the French literary scene with a bang, with her first book, La Petite dernière, recounting her quest for identity as a woman, a lesbian, a Muslim, and a person of the French urban ghetto (banlieu) of Algerian origin. Her adaptation of the book is the 3rd directdorial outing of Hafsia Herzi, who first became famous acting in Abdellatif Kechiche's THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN in 2007. As Fatima, Nadia Melliti plays a teenager struggling to reconcile her religious convictions with her burgeoning sexuality.Critics are favorable about this premiere. This includes Guy Lodge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/news/the-little-sister-review-1236394677/), who says the film rejects clichés of queer cinema by having nothing terrible happen. It is radical by being low-keyed. In this leabian coming-of-age, esxplicit sex scenes are omitted in favor of languourous kisses. Lodge calls the film "Sensitive and empathetic but a little timid in storytelling and style." Still it is something new in French cinema and while the first of Herzi's three directorial efforts not based on her own story, is also reportedly her best so far.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES 2025 DAY FIVE

BONO: STORIES OF SURRENDER (Andrew Dominik) - Special Screenings.

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BONO AS SEEN IN BONO: STORIES OF SURRENDER

The starkly elegant black and white film of the U2 star's autobiographical one-man show has been well received at Cannes. Owen Gleiberman of VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/bono-stories-of-surrender-review-1236398712/) calls it "captivating" and "vibrant." Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/16/bono-stories-of-surrender-review-megastar-tries-out-humility#:~:text=It's%20a%20confident%2C%20often%2 0engaging,rock'n'roll%20pizzazz.) (three out of five stars): "It’s a confident, often engaging mix of music and no-frills theatrical performance, with Bono often coming across like some forgotten character that Samuel Beckett created but then suppressed due to undue levels of rock’n’roll pizzazz." SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/bono-stories-of-surrender-review-u2s-bono-looks-back-in-energetic-solo-show/5205000.article#:~:text=This%20'Surrender'%20proje ct%20is%2C,one%20hell%20of%20a%20raconteur.) (Nikki Braughan): "Weaving recollection, recreation, drama and song, he takes the audience from the schoolboy Paul David Hewson to the Grammy Award-winning, stadium-filling rock star he is today. . . This ‘Surrender’ project is, Bono admits, an attempt to cast off the mask of fame and reveal his true self. While many may question whether doing that in front of an audience dilutes the sense of genuine revelation, there is no denying Bono’s frankness, honesty and humour – and that he remains one hell of a raconteur."

RICHARD LINKLATER'S 'NOUVELLE VAGUE' - TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795BXtBR2u4&ab_channel=ARPS%C3%A9lection)

[Chris Knipp]

NOUVELLE VAGUE (Richard Linklater) - In Competition

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AUBRY DULLIN, ZOEY DEUTCH IN NOUVELLE VAGUE

Watch the trailer (above) and you will see or can judge for yourself if this is a rif off or homage to Goaard's classic BREATHLESS aka À BOUT DE SOUFLE, in French, with new actors Aubry Doullin and Zoey Deutch in the roles of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and Guillaume Marbeck as director Jean-Cuc Godard. restaging scenes in the cadre of a making-of. Sample in the trailer: Jean-Paul walks beside Jean saying (in French) "He films me from a camera hidden ina mail card. And I can say whatever comes into my head because it will be dubbed later." And why make this film? American critics are charmed. But this may seem as Peter Bradshaw says in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/17/nouvelle-vague-richard-linklater-bends-the-knee-to-breathless-and-jean-luc-godard) "reathless, deathless … and pointless," too tame and respectful, and, incredibly, avoids the jumpcuts that were the original's influential, defining innovation. Linklater has recreated "the landmark French New Wave classic with an awestruck tastefulness that smooths over any disruptiveness," Bradshaw says. I'm not sure French critics will even bother with this but we'll see; it's in French, and French audiences may be curious. When Godard was still around in 2017 he called Hazanavicius' homage REDOUTABLE "a stupid, stupid idea." Bradshaw calls NOUVELLE VAGUE "a slick Steadicam ride through a historic, tumultuous moment" in which Linklater "bends the knee" to Godard.

[Chris Knipp]

OSCAR EXPERT'S 'BROTHER BRO' - SIRAT by Oliver LAXE his favorite so far

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IMAGE FROM SIRAT

This YOUTUBE VIDEO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ZvSppNyiE&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) (for channel subscribers) from Oscar Expert "brother bro" Justin Jaeger is interesting not for details but as an on-the-scene set of reactions. He loved SOUND OF FALLING by Mascha SCHILINSKI, sees it as a tone piece or "a tapestry" with layers of meaning. He has watched it twice and will review it in detail. It is "impeccably well crafted," and "a must-see Cannes film." He said some people thought TWO PROSECUTORS by Sergei LOZNITSA "a snooze" and it was "slow-paced" but he thought it was "very sophisticated" and obviously relevant as a "deconstruction of fascism" seen through the pursuit of a legal case. Later he posted a sit-down review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36PLfEL0ms&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) of SIRAT.

He saw PROMISED SKY/PROMIS LE CIEL by Erige SEHIRI, the opening Un Certain Regard film and thought it had "very good performaces" and was "solid" and a "touching and important immigrant story." But he was half asleep for it and will not review it. DOSSIER 137 by Dominik MOLL "was good" and was "very straightforward" but he "actually" didn't think it belonged in the Cannes Festival and will not review it. LEFT-HANDED GIRL (in Critics' Week) was co-written by Sean Baker; he could not remember the director (Shih-Ching Tsou) but found it "Tender, sweet, funny, entertaining... very good" and the "third act kind of blowing up in. your face" reminded him of TANGERINE. (The story is of a single mother and her two daughters who relocate from China to Taipei to open a night market stall and strive to make ends meet. He will review it but won't go into much detail. Ben Konigsberg discusses it in more detail on ROGEREBERT.com (https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/cannes-2025-left-handed-girl-sirat).)

On a whole other level for 'brother bro' was SIRAT by Oliver LAXE, which he declares "fucking rips." "It is not a film for everybody," but "riveting, and a joy," and in the second half he felt "existential terror." He is most excited about SIRAT so far, enthusiastic about its powerful suspense and its soundtrack, which begins with the sounds of a music festival in the desert, then takes us out into the desert itself with the cast and "you feel that score rippling through your bones,." Clearly SIRAT is his favorite so far. (It depicts a small group searching for a rave in the desert at an apocalyptic time and a father searching for a child lost at a rave.)

THE PLAGUE by Charlie POLINGER | 1st film (Un Certain Regard) was "pretty excellent" and he'll give it an 8 or manybe a 9; concerns bullying and exclusion among boys where a shy boy's anxiety spirals into psychological turmoil when at a summer water polo camp. He found the child performances some of the best performances he has seen at the festival. His reaction to NZO by Laurent Cantet, directed by Robin Campillo - opening film was somewhat lukewarm. With CHRONOLOGY OF WATER by Kristen Stewart he felt "her voice was very strong with "free flowing" motion and editing that is "quite striking." EDDINGTON by Ari Aster he found quire worthless but then in response to some reallly liking it provided a longer comment. So there you have a first report of 10 films in which "brother bro" shows his considerable festival stamina and composure.

[Chris Knipp]

RENOIR (Chie Hayakawa) in Competition

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HIKARI ISHIDA IN RENOIR

This Japanese Cannes Competition film about the story of 11-year-old Fuki who "experiences the turbulence of loneliness, sexual curiosity, and the pain of her dying father over one summer in Tokyo," was reviewed by Clarance Tsui of SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3310774/cannes-2025-renoir-movie-review-plan-75s-chie-hayakawa-considers-amorality-japan) and this Japanese film was singled out by Peter Bradshaw among the first half of Cannes films he's seen. It features the superb Lily Franky as the aging, dying father of 11-year-old Fuki, who suffers from a lack of affect in this examination of of death and Japan's moral anorexia and turns to the supernatural and art (including Renoir) to escape. . Tsui found excellent acting and a piquant subject here. Hayakawa's debut film, PLAN 75, depicts a dystopia in which the elderly are encouraged to participate in a state-sponsored euthanasia programme "to make the country young again." RENOIR is set in the 1980's but looks for the origins of the "twisted social norms" that would make PLAN 75 happen, Tsui says. Bradshaw mentions RENOIR favorably in one of his short videos but has not published a review of it yet.

[Chris Knipp]

LEO AND BOB, THE HONORARY LIFETIME PALME D'OR

This was a few nights ago, but everyoe knows Leonardo Di Caprio presented the honorary Palme d'Or to Robert De Niro. on Tuesday. They were both very eloquent. Thanks to YouTube, we can watch them.
Leonardo Di Capro's speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be08VGakuf0&ab_channel=DreamNight)
Robert De Niro's speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be08VGakuf0&ab_channel=DreamNight)

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Here is De Niro's speech:

In my country, we are fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted. That affects all of us here because the arts are democratic. Art is inclusive, it brings people together. Art embraces diversity and that’s why art is a threat, that’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists.

America’s philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions. He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education. And now he has announced a 100% tariff on films produced outside of the U.S. Let that sink in. … You can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can put a tariff on it.

This is not just an American problem, it’s a global one. We can’t all just sit back and watch. We have to act and we have to act now, not with violence but with great passion and determination. It’s time for everyone who cares about liberty to organize, to protest — and when there are elections, of course, to vote. Tonight and for the next 11 days we show our strength and commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival. Libérté, égalité, fraternité!.

[Chris Knipp]

TWO TOUGH CHARACTER STUDIES FROM BRITISH DIRECTORS, ONE NEW, ONE VETERAN

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FRANK DILLANE IN URCHIN

URCHIN (Harris Dickinson) - directorial debut

CLIP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gR6EYNyqhk&ab_channel=TheUpcoming)

Wendy Ide of SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/urchin-review-harris-dickinson-directs-an-elevated-study-of-addiction/5204519.article) signals a "boldly creative" directorial debut of the 28-year-old English actor in an addiction study of a young man with surprising leavening moments of levity and beauty. Frank Dillane plays the lead, with Dickinson himself in a small role. Dickenson draws on his own experience of volunteer work with homeless charities in North London for the story, Ide reports, which focuses on a young man who has been living in London for years with crime and addiction problems who is trying to get his life together, with mixed results. Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/urchin-review-harris-dickinson-homelessness-drama-is-terrific-directorial-debut), awarding four out of five stars, calls it "a strong, singular and sometimes surrealist" debut with "a superb central turn" by Dillane. "The ending is downbeat, but like much in the film, it is infused with an unexpected beauty," Ide writes. Dickinson has always seemed astute to me; its not surprising that he'd score behind the camera, or that he would choose a tough subject and direct an outstanding performance.

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE IN DIE MY LOVE

DIE MY LOVE (Lynne Ramsey) - fifth feature

CLIP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf1OVw-zUxM&ab_channel=TheUpcoming)

The Scottish auteur, in her first feature in eight years, provides "a ferociously intense study of a lonely, passionate woman and her descent into bipolar disorder," Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/17/die-my-love-review-jennifer-lawrence-excels-in-intensely-sensual-study-of-a-woman-in-meltdown)reports (awarding four out of five stars). Playing "a new mother unravelling in terrifying fashion" Jennifer Lawrence is "the match that lights Ramsey's gripping, slow-burn fifth feature," says Tim Grierson in SCREEN DAILY. (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/die-my-love-review-jennifer-lawrence-sparks-lynne-ramsays-portrait-of-a-troubled-marriage/5205177.article) She gives "a no-holds-barred performance that careens between disturbed reality and disturbing fantasy," writes David Romney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/die-my-love-review-jennifer-lawrence-robert-pattinson-1236220430/), in a combustible, difficult marriage with husband played by Robert Pattinson. This adaptation of a 2012 novel by Ariana Marwicz "quickly reveals new layers, examining mental health and the passionate bond between volatile lovers that’s so feverish it can sometimes make them feel like they’re losing their minds," writes Grierson. Ramsay "brings the Gothic-realist steam heat, some violent shocks and deafening music slams to this movie, adapted by her with co-writers Alice Birch and Enda Walsh," says Bradshaw. The action takes place in a rambling Montana house where Lawrence, descending into bi-polar disorder, is left alone all day. Ramsey's style is to project a style of "overwhelming muscular strength," Bradshaw writes. Sissy Spacek is present as Jackson's (Lawrence's character's) mother, with Nick Nolte as her husband, who has dementia. Mixed scores for this one on the Cannes jury grid of which EDDINGTON is at the bottom.

THE CANNES JURY GRID

Jury Grid at day six: TWO PROSECUTORS remains at the top with 3.0, followed by THE SOUND OF FALLING and THE SECRET AGENT with 2.8, then NOUVELLE VAGUE. DIE MY LOVE, RENOIR and SIRAT are all at 2.5. Still 13 more films to come.

https://www.screendaily.com/cannes-jury-grid

[Chris Knipp]

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BENICIO DEL TORO AND MIA THREAPLETON IN THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (Wes Anderson) - 12th feature - Cannes in Competition

Wes is more Wes than ever, reports are, but more warm and accessible than in recent outings in his well-received 2025 Cannes Competition debut THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. The focus is on an unscrupulous Fifties multi-millionaire played by Benicio del Toro who has made his pile selling arms and such. Now he wants to leave his wealth to his daughter (played by Kate Winslet’s daughter Mia Threapleton) who is about to become a nun, and she is thinking it over. Many notable cast members deliver dialogue with Wes rapidity and chill. There is the requisite precise and handsome sound design and a score again by Alexandre Desplat. Familiar faces and some new ones are to be seen. It's "a dense but undeniably enjoyable saga" says Peter Debruge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-phoenician-scheme-review-wes-anderson-1236402578/), that "doubles as a moving father-daughter tale and ultimately seems far more interested in exploring the robber baron spirit of 20th-century capitalism than its consequences." Inspired by former moguls like J. Paul Getty, J.P. Morgan and Anderson’s own late father-in-law, Lebanese construction mogul Fouad Mikhael Malouf. Actors new to the Wes crew include Michael Cera (who was right all along), Riz Ahmed, and Mia Threapleton, who plays the daughter.

[Chris Knipp]

PILLION (Harry Lighton) - 1st film - Un Certain Regard

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HARRY MELLING AND ALEXANDER SKARSGARD IN PILLION

This gay (coming-of-age?) film feature debut set in the commuter town of Bromley outside London adapts Adam Mars-Jones' 2020 novella Box Hill (an ironic title since Box Hill is the location of a pivotal scene in Jane Austen's Emma).The presence of Alexander Skarsgard will garner attention as no doubt will its explicit sex, says Nikki Braughan in her SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/pillion-review-alexander-skarsgard-and-harry-melling-star-in-frank-british-debut/5205152.article) review, "although Lighton’s own light yet confident approach is what drives Pillion forward." Harry Melling (a Harry Potter actor) is the other lead in this film already sold to the US (A24) and the UK (Picturehouse). Colin (Melling) has gay-friendly salt-of-the-earth working class parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp) with whom he still lives. He sings in a cornily costumed barbershop quarted with his dad. He meets tall handsome biker Ray (Skarsgard) at a pub. The proper bourgeois gay relationship Collin and his parents may expect doesn't happen: licking his boots on Christmas Day is their first date and young traffic warden Collin becomes Ray's live-in submissive "expected to meet all of Ray’s domestic and sexual needs," reports Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/pillion-review-50-shades-of-bsdm-wallace-and-gromit-in-brilliant-bromley-biker-romance) (four out of five stars), who describes PILLION as "funny and touching and alarming" and "like a cross between Alan Bennett and Tom of Finland" with "a tiny smidgen" of "a BDSM Wallace and Gromit" and "what Fifty Shades of Grey should have been." David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/pillion-review-alexander-skarsgard-harry-melling-lgbtq-1236219700/) says the leads are "fearless" in the "graphic but surprisingly tender study of a sub/dom queer romance" that is "less about the shock factor of some very graphic gay kink than the nuances of love, desire and mutual needs within a sub/dom relationship."

[Chris Knipp]

THE SECRET AGENT (Kleber Mendoça Filho) - Competition

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WAGNER MOURA IN THE SECRET AGENT

Wendy Ide says in SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-secret-agent-review-kleber-mendonca-filhos-1970s-brazilian-thriller-is-riot-of-a-movie/5205206.article) that O AGENTE SECRETO (the Brazilian title) is "a sweat-soaked riot of a movie." It's also a "period politifcal thriler about a widowed father," Marcelo ("Narcos" star Wagner Moura), "whose life is in danger," explains David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-secret-agent-review-wagner-moura-kleber-mendonca-filho-1236220752/), a left-leaning academic and technology expert in trouble in 1977 Brazil who flees back to his birthplace near Recife with his 8-year-old son (probbably a stand-in for the director) using an assumed name. A well-connected government official has taken a contract out on Marcelo, forcing him to seek refuge with an old woman in Recife," Peter Debruge explains in his VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-secret-agent-review-o-agente-secreto-1236402205/) review. It has a recurrant hairy leg that is some kind of metaphor "for the regime’s persecution of the queer community, among other groups, including dope-smokers, longhairs and anyone else who might be automatically branded as a communist," says Rooney. But Recife is in carnival and full of violence and wildness with thousands in the streets and a mounting death toll. History and its erasure for people who arenn't rich is a theme, and Marcelo is looking for the story of his mother, while after Marcelo " negotiates the jackals of the local police" is befriended by the corrupt local police chief. It's the time of the dictatorship again (but different from I'M STILL HERE) - A lawless world where many corpses turn up. Marcelo befriends a "covert community of refugees" and meets a German with many scars played by Udo Kier. Mendoça Filho shot the picture, as he did BAKARAU, in anamorphic Panovision, and "it looks terrific." A serrous film about a terrible time but full of wild and riotous eleents. It is fun for reviewers to describe as shown by this paragraph from David Rooney's HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review: "There’s also a conjoined-twins cat, with two faces on one body; a woman experiencing demonic possession while being helped out of a movie theater showing The Omen; a less perturbed gentleman at the same screening getting a zesty blowjob in a back row while poor Lee Remick gets whacked by her Antichrist child; a kid so obsessed with Jaws he has nightmares but is too young to see the 14-certificate release; and a shark motif that even appears in an old black-and-white Popeye episode." With its run-time 160 minutes, there's obviously a lot packed into this film: you get a different impression of it in each review but the critical and Cannes audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/20/the-secret-agent-review-brilliant-brazilian-drama-of-an-academic-on-the-run-in-the-murderous-1970s) gave it five out of five stars and called it the best film of Cannes. Only "brother bro" of YouTube didn't go for it; he has trouble with complicated plot lines and it definitely has one. This film sounds richly layered and exciting, and it has scored a North American deal, so we'll be able to see it in the US.

[Chris Knipp]

THE LOVE THAT REMAINS (Hlynur Pálmason) - Cannes premieres

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THE LOVE THAT REMAINS (ÁSTIN SEM EFTIR ER), a film about the (impending) end of a marriege, is the very different followup by the Icelandic director to his powerful breakthrough historical film GODLAND (2022) about an unstable Danish priest establishing a new church on the islands. His first two films, reviewed on FILMLEAF, were WINTER BROTHERS (2017) and A WHITE, WHITE DAY (2019), whose Nordic austerity lingers in the mind. Peter Bradshaw reviewed the new one for the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/the-love-that-remains-review-tragicomic-portrait-of-a-fractured-family-hlynur-palmason) and gave it three out of five stars. His summary was that the film "examines a broken marriage through stunning imagery and quirky fantasy visions, but [its] new comic tone undermines the pain." This is a somewhat autobiographical film about a fisherman not-quite-separated from from his artist wife. His own children Ída, Grímur, and Þorgils play fictional couple’s brood. The scenes float between reality and fantasy to show the distance between the husband, Magnus, "Maggi" (Sverrir Gudnason) and his wife. There is an INDIEWIRE (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-love-that-remains-review-hlynur-palmason-1235123824/) review by David Katz and one by Wendy Ide in SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-love-that-remains-review-follow-up-to-godland-is-a-tender-breakup-drama/5204669.article#:~:text=It's%20an%20inventive%20ap proach%20to,than%20drifting%20untethered%20from%20 reality.). There is "A jazz-infused piano score by Harry Hunt," Ide explains, to link the "vignettes that make up the film," and its lightness echoes the narrative's "light-footed dance around its interconnected stories and moments of surreality." But Ide thinks the best parts are the ones rooted in reality.

[Chris Knipp]

MY FATHER’S SHADOW (Akinola Davies Jr.) - Un Certain Regard - 1st film

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GODWIN AND CHIBUKE MARVELLLOUS EGBO WITH SOPE DIRISU (CENTER) IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW

This film debuted in Un Certain Regard on Cannes day six follows a father and his two sons on a day trip to Lagos in 1993, navigating a political and social landscape on the brink of a coup. Wendy Ide in SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/my-fathers-shadow-review-sope-dirisu-stars-in-this-electric-debut-set-in-1990s-nigeria/5204666.article) called it a "terrific semi-autobiographical first feature." It stars "Gangs of London’s" Sope Dirisu as the boys’ "magnetic" father Folarin, and is a "thrillingly vital account of the moment when everything changes," Ide wrote. Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/my-fathers-shadow-review-subtle-and-intelligent-coming-of-age-tale-set-in-1993-nigeria) called it "deft and intriguing," "subtle and intelligent" and "a rich, heartfelt and rewarding movie" and he gave it four out of five stars. Ide links its use of archival footage and a "textural" sound design and child's eye POV to RaMell Ross's NICKEL BOYS while its fusion of African-infused energy and European sensibility she connects with Mati Diop and her ATLANTICS. Le Pacte has picked it up for European disribution, she notes. The film depicts a fraught time spent by the boys with their father who is away a lot for work: in this day he shows he has allies and admirers but also flirts. The end is ambiguous: did this day even happen? Ide asks. The boys ask the heavy question, is absence a sign of love? Pete Hammond for DEADLINE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/my-fathers-shadow-review-cannes-1236402626/) says this is "one of the most moving and universally relevant and emotional films of any in this year’s fest." The director won a major prize at Sundance and elsewhere for a short, and this is the proof of his promise.

[Chris Knipp]

NINO (Pauline Loquès) - Critics Week

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THÉODORE PELLLERIN IN NINO

TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVvFKulmNfI&ab_channel=ThePartyFilmSales)

Whimsy and humor accompany a young man wandering around Paris who has learned he has throat cancer and must enter intense treatment in this surreal, adventurous debut feature whose Cannes premiere was very well received. No reviews yet by major players but here is a collective one: "Reinventing the narrative: If you thought a film following a man's weekend after discovering he's ill couldn't be charming, funny, tender, warm and thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end, journalist turned filmmaker Pauline Loquès will change your mind." Alex Heeney of SEVENTH ROW (https://seventh-row.com/2025/05/19/film-review-pauline-loques-nino-cannes/)writes: "Nino beautifully and viscerally captures that strange limbo you enter when you get a serious medical diagnosis, like treatable cancer. You’re not dying, but you’re not healthy either." A French report says the room was weeping ("salle en larmes") when it ended. The star, Théodore Pellerin, is from Quebec and looks interesting.

LA VIE PRIVÉE (Rebecca Zlokowski) - Out of Competition

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JODIE FOSTER IN VIE PRIVÉE

Rebecca Zlotowski’s VIE PRIVÉE/A PRIVATE LIFE sees Jodie Foter acting in French. We know she learned to speak French at a bilingual schol in LA, and learned to speak it uncommonly well, but she hasn't had a French role since Jeunet's A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT over 20 years ago in a very small role. The cast this time includes popular French actors Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste and Luana Bajrami. The plot concerns a renowned psychiatrist called Lilian Steiner, played by Foster, an American long resident in Paris, who mounts her own private investigation into the death of one of her patients, said to be a suicide but whom she is convinced has been murdered. Peter Debruge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/private-life-review-vie-privee-1236403859/)says this one is "an old-school psychological mystery, the likes of which Hollywood once made in abundance, before the genre migrated to TV." Jodie Foster's "sophisticated American in Paris" he says is "an almost Hitichcockisn character." Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/21/vie-privee-a-private-life-review-jodie-foster-daniel-auteuil-cannes) also calls the film ""Hitchcockian" and gives int three out of. five stars. Pete Hammond in his DEADLINE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/vie-privee-review-jodie-foster-mystery-completely-french-cannes-film-festival-1236405326/) review says Jodie is "remarkable" and this is great entertainment. It got a ten-minute standing ovation. Sony has snapped it up for US distribution.

[Chris Knipp]

ELEANOR THE GREAT (Scarlett Johansson) - Un Certain Regard

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RITA SOHAR AND JUNE SQUIBB IN ELEANOR THE GREAT

In this iffy directorial debut by the actress Scarlett Johansson, the 95-year-old Jane Squibb "gives an enjoyably twinkly performance" says Bradshaw in his GUARDIAN review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/20/eleanor-the-great-review-june-squibb-scarlett-johansson-directing-debut), but this is "a film that misjudges how seriously its story should be taken." He reminds us Squibb got a "remarkable career renaissance" in 2013 with Alexander Payne's NEBRASKA. The screenplay cowritten with Tory Kamen means well, Bradshaw says, but misjudges the solemnity of the holocaust theme and also of the question of whether or not to commit one's elders to a care home. The plot leads Squbb's American-born Jewish character to pretend to be a Holocaust survivor to fit into a NYC social group, pretending to herself she is honoring late Florida best friend-roommate Bessie (Rita Zohar) who was that but never got to tell her story publicly. Bradshaw awards two out of five stars. Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/eleanor-the-great-review-june-squibb-scarlett-johansson-1236402413/) thinks the film should "have sharpened its comedy more," but the direction is just neutral and the material "often seems to have come out of a screenwriting processor." He shows Eleanor is an entertaining but unsympathetic character. Rude elders and Holocaust fraud sound like a dangerous combination. Gleiberman doesn't buy that Eleanor is fraudulently assuming her dead friend's identity out of grief; he thinks she just greatly enjoys being the center of attention. Maybe Scarlett Johansson was unwise to choose this screenplay.

[Chris Knipp]

EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC نسر الجمهورية (Tarek Saleh) - In Competition

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In this Saleh completes his Cairo trilogy, mostly shot elsewhere because he has been banned for his explicitness about contemporary Egyptian life and politics. EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC was shot in Istanbul, Turkey with post-production in Gothenberg. It runs 128 mins. Tim Grierson for SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/eagles-of-the-republic-review-tarik-saleh-reunites-with-fares-fares-to-end-his-cairotrilogy/5204758.article), who describes this film very favorably as as "A darkly amusing look at a dysfunctional film shoot which becomes a terse thriller," says the first two panels of the trilogy show orruption and paranoia coursing through Egyptian society. The third sharpens its knife focusing on the principled actor who finds how easy it is to make the film the regime wants. Again Saleh uses Lebanese-Swedish actor Fares Fares in the lead. This time the story is more satirical, depicting how George, a vain aging star of Egyptian movies, is seduced (and coerced) into portraying an over-flattering portrait of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, even though he disapproves of him. Alexandre Desplat has joined a top level company along with Pierre Aim’s cinematography and Roger Rosenberg’s production design to provide the score. Jordan Mintzer of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/eagles-of-the-republic-review-movies-collide-with-political-might-in-tarik-salehs-dark-and-clever-conspiracy-thriller-1236221497/) calls the film "dark and clever." Mintzer says Saleh occupies an "intriguing middle ground," making a film that is highly entertaining while also having a lot ot say about contemporary politics. But EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC isn't much of a blip on the SCREENDAILY Cannes Jury grid - 1.8, just above EDDINGTON.

[Chris Knipp]

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT یک تصادف ساده (Jafar Panahi) - In Competition

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(Originally entitled A SIMPLE ACCIDENT.) Premise: "Vahid kidnaps a man with a false leg who resembles the man who tortured him in prison and ruined his life." World renouned Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi is at Cannes in person for the first time isince 2003 for what is more a comedy and much more a reallistic story than usual lately. It's about a man who, driving at night, hits a dog, then has his car break down and must seek a mechaic. A man starts to follow him. Vahid is a guy who follows the driver home and kidnaps him in his van for the reason already given. A group of victims of this man, called Eghbal, Pegleg, now gather. There are droll and human touches while the endsmble considers murdering their torturer, but they aren't sure he is that. Lots of single shots and specific action detail. The dp is Amin Jafari — who shot Jafar's son Panah Panahi's wpnderful 2021 debut HIT THE ROAD. (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4906) This reminds me of the 2025 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema film GHOST TRAIL/ LES FANTÔMES (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?5569-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-2025&p=42202#post42202) (Jonathan Millet 2024), about a man seeking to hunt down his prison torturer. "Subtly plotted like a good thriller, the movie slowly but surely builds into a stark condemnation of abusive power and its long-lasting effects," says Jordan Mintzer in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/it-was-just-an-accident-review-jafar-panahi-iran-1236222539/). In 2003 when Panahi was allowed free travel last it was when his CRIMSON GOLD won the Un Certain Regard prize. (My first festival look at Panhi was the NYFF, 2006, for OFFSIDE (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=662), a vivid film that used vérité filming at an actual game to dramatize, as I put it, "the disconnect between modern world soccer madness and retro-Islamic social prohibitions repressing women." Maybe IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT was the most important Cannes film of the day, and got a 3.0 on the Cannes Jury Grid - the highest score so far.

[Chris Knipp]

ALPHA (Julia Ducournau). - In Competition

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MELISSA BOROS AS "ALPHA"

Two years ago Julia Ducournau won the Palme d'Or for the horror-drama film TITANE, becoming the second female winner and first all by herself; Jane Campion shared the award with Chen Kaige in 1993. This year she uses the same attention-getting maximalism as in TITANE for an AIDS-rellated sci-fi allegory, one of three at Cannes this year. Her film Peter Debruge says in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/alpha-review-julia-ducournau-1236402887/), "at once bluntly obvious and maddeningly unclear." A 13-year-old is in danger from a crude tattoo received at a party. Golshifteh Farahani plays her mother. The disease, which is killing her addict brother (played by a drastically thin Tahar Rahim), causes victims to "cough a chalky powder as their bodies slowly turn to stone", while the broken stone still oozes and bleeds. Debruge says it is "painful to watch" Farahani and Rahim, "among the most gifted performers of their generation," forced to put so much into roles that are common and clichéd "by American indie standsrds." The film, says Stephanie Bumbury of DEADLINE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/alpha-review-julia-ducournau-movie-1236405069/), takes place largely at "clubs filled with multiply pierced human wrecks, living it up while waiting to die." The images are in extremely desaturated color. Jordan Mintzer of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER calls thie film "arrestingly original and numbingly ove-the-top." Peter Debruge simiply calls it "rotten." The Jury grid score is 1.5, the same as EDDINGTON, the bottom rung of Competition films this year so far. (Later beaten by Mario Martone's FUORI with a 1.0.)

[Chris Knipp]

THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD (Thierry Kifa) - Out of Competition

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ISABELLE HUPPERT, MARINA FOÏS IN THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD

La femme la plus riche du monde (the French title) is a megawealthy downfall drama (aoubt one woman giving away a lot of her wealth to another) loosely based on the 2010 Bettencourt l'Oreal heiress empire Affair. Jessica Kiang VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-richest-woman-in-the-world-review-isabelle-huppert-1236403705/) finds it "middling," unworthy of Isabelle Huppert, the star, playing the titular woman, but simultaneiously ideally suited to her. She is great at playing the rich and spoiled. This was shown with VISITING HOURS/LA PRISONNIÈRE DE BORDEAUX (Patricia Mazuy, 2024) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?5569-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-2025&p=42199#post42199)at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema earlier this year; and there are plenty of others. Reviews found that despite some dark jokes about the gilded cage of the rich,this film isn't sharp enough,lacks the necessary edge, the "Successon" energy, and can't "make this battle for power deliciously devious" ("https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-richest-woman-in-the-world-review-isabelle-huppert-drama-plays-on-a-notorious-real-life-loreal-heir/5205245.article") or alternately "surprisingly sympathetic and nuanced." Tim Grierson in SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-richest-woman-in-the-world-review-isabelle-huppert-drama-plays-on-a-notorious-real-life-loreal-heir/5205245.article) however says the film "boasts the dependable pleasures of watching wealthy people plot and scheme," and one might add simply watching how it looks to be super rich: it's like a 21st-century version of the 1001 Nights. But GRierson admits it "lacks the killer instinct." With Isabelle Huppert in it, one might be willing to watch it anyway, but Kiang's review is pretty damning.

[Chris Knipp]

WILD FOXES (Valéry Carnoy) - Directors' Fortnight

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SAMUEL KIRCHER IN WILD FOXES

WILD FOXES/LA DANSE DES RENARDS, is a debut school boxing drama by Belgian writer-director Valéry Carnoy starring rising young French film actor Samuel Kircher that is receiving mixed reviews. Critics praise Kircher's performance and the film's exploration of masculinity and friendship within a boxing context. Some find the plot predictable and lacking a unique edge, particularly the fox hunt subplot. Jordan Mintzer's revidw in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/wild-foxes-review-samuel-kircher-1236205047/) highlights Kircher's strong portrayal of the troubled young boxer, while IONCINEMA's (https://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/valery-carnoy-wild-foxes-la-danse-des-renards-review) review finds "frustratingly familiar tropes" and criticizes the film for its lack of depth. SCREENDAILY's (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/wild-foxes-review-samuel-kircher-lands-a-punch-in-school-boxing-drama/5204668.article) review says the film "lands a punch" and suggests its timely themes of a young school boxer meeting the challenge of a big injury could attract arthouse audiences. The Directors' Fortnight section includes 19 films, some most of note being ENZO (Cantet-Campillo), MIROIRS No. 3 (Christian Petzold), and YES (Nadav Lapid).

[Chris Knipp]

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOSEF MENGELE (Kirill Serebrennikov). Cannes premiere

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The Rjssian dissident director has worked from a non-fiction novel by French writer Olivier Guez to make this black and white film in German (original title DAS VERSCHWINDEN DES JOSEF MENGELE) about the notorious Nazi war criminal doctor of Auschwitz focusing on his escape and hiding in Brazil. Jordan Miintzer can't see why the film was made and describes. it in his HOLLY3OOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-disappearance-of-jose-mengele-review-serebrennikov-1236213612/) review as "artfully directedd" but "intellectually vacuous," a "Holocaust-ploitation flick." The VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-disappearance-of-josef-mengele-review-1236402776/) review by Siddhant Adlakha says simply the film takes on more ideas than it can handle." Serebrennikov is a chameleon, a genre-hopper, notes Mintzer, as seen in his LETO, TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE, and last year’s biopic LIMONOV. August Diehl (A HIDDEN LIFE) as Mengele provides "a committed performance" that "borders at times on caricature," but he is not made "a likeable protagonist." A lush flashback to Mengele performing is worst deeds is pure "Holocaust=poitation," and vulgar, MIntzer says. Jonathan Roomney in SCCREENDAILY is more indulgent, calling the film "’Fascinating, if not entirely successful." It seems technically it is very accomplished, with long takes and gorgeously contrasty B&W. But like GREAT ELEANOR, which also has a Holocaust tie-in, it seems uncomfortable and misjudged.

Poetntially more rewarding films in the Cannes Premiere sectoion are AMRUM by Turkish- German auteur Fatih Akin and the sophomore work SPLITSVILLE by Michael Angelo Covino, whose 2019 debut THE CLIMB was a highly wrought comic masterpiece fully of elaborate long takes. AMRUM is a historical film named after the island in the North Sea, where psychological intrigue looms large in the summer of 1945. See below.

[Chris Knipp]

SPILITSVILLE (Mmciael Angelo Covino) - Cannes Premiere

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KYLE MARVIN, MICHAEL COVINO, DAKOTA JOHNSON AND ADRIANA ARJONA IN SPLITSVILLE

Covino continues his THE CLIMB theme of partner-swapping in a sophomore effort that Tim Grierson of SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/splitsville-review-dakota-johnson-and-adria-arjona-play-love-rivals-in-partner-swap-comedy/5205230.article) calls "uneven." Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona Play the Field in what Guy LOdge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/splitsville-review-dakota-johnson-1236403220/) calls an "exhausting knockabout rom-com." (I now realize that the trouble with THE CLIMB, which I had so much time for, was that it was exhausting.) This comedy "amuses and grates in equal measure," Lodge says. The film is coming to US theaters through NEON in August, and may make an impression in that dry time. The focus here is more on marital issues than bromance ones, and it's resultingly less pereceptive, he says. The picture reps "a step into broader, more commercial territory for Covino" because "Both the sentimentality and the slapstick have been amped up," and Dakota Johnson adds "some A-list star power" as the two men's "most contested object of affection" with Arjona as her chief rival. Covino again cooaborates with his male best friend Kyle Marvin as the other guy. Grierson says there aren't as many intricate single-take sequences but there are "elegant tracking shots and smart, unshowy compositions" making this a rom-com that is unsually beautiful. Not a success, evidently, but after carefully studing THE CLIMB, this will be interesting to compare. In his 3rd CANNES RECAP #3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvfv55_2f6Y&t=32s&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) he says he loved THE CLIMB and this is just as good.

[Chris Knipp]

ROMERÍA (Carla Simón) - In Competition

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In this third semi-autobiographical film from the Spanish director an 18-year-old woman, orphaned through AIDS-related causes at a young age, travels to Spain’s Atlantic coast to meet her paternal grandparents for the first time, confronting a past shaped by absence and long-buried emotions. Wendy Ide of SCREEN DAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/romeria-review-carla-simons-third-semi-autobiographical-feature-is-pensive-and-rather-lovely/5205353.article) calls it "pensive and rather lovely." Romería is Spanish for pilgrimage. This third feature is very consistent with the filmmaker's admired two first films, especially the more autobiographcal SUMMER 1993 (which I reviewed (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3946)) and ALCARRAS. The director has won several top awards at Berlin and been Spain's Best Foreign entry. I was very admiring of the 2017 SUMMER 1993, but found that its documentary rapture led to a lack of storytelling energy and character development. Here the 18-year-old goes goes to see her grandparents to get a signature from them to enable her to study cinematography but also learns her status with extended family. Guy Lodge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/romeria-review-1236405607/) is admiring of ROMERIA in similar terms. The film is multi-lingual. Marina (Llucia Garcia), the protagonist, speaks Spanish with her wealthy famly, Catalan with her adoptive mother, French to a relative, and also Galician. Marina's own fuzzy camcorder footage is woven into the film along with words from her mother's journal as the disciplined Marina explores the world of her hedonistic, drug-addicted parents, whose AIDS death has left her a pariah for many of her extended family, and whom never knew. ROMRIA got a 2.7 on the Cannes Jury Grid, third highest for this relatively lukewarm Cannes Competition year.

THE HISTORY OF SOUND (Oliver Hermanus) - In Competition

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Hot Brit stars of the moment Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal play two young men who go on a song-collecting folk music trip in rural Maine. It's 1917, and they're clandestinely gay, having reunited after bonding two years earlier over their shared love of folk as music students. In VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-history-of-sound-review-paul-mescal-josh-oconnor-1236405552/), Owen Gleiberman's damning reaction is "llike BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN on sedatives." That may be, but the two stars and the gay theme make this a commercial item. It received a none-minute ovation at its Cannes premiere, and it has been bought by MUBI for North America (who did the first big 2025 Cannes buy of DIE MY LOVE for $24 million) and Focus Features/Universal have international rights. In SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-history-of-sound-review-josh-oconnor-and-paul-mescal-are-clandestine-lovers-in-us-set-period-drama/5205380.article) Marshall writes that this film will "cement Hermanus as a full member of the commercially-viable arthouse director club." Marshall may be confirming Gleibrman's assessment when he says "Reticence is also the keynote" of not only the story and its telling but the two lead performances. The screenplay is byBen Shattuck from his short story. The Cannes Grid score was 1.9, same as Tarek Saleh's EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC, and pretty mediocre.

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes news

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Davika Hoorne and 'A Useful Ghost'

Critics Week

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s zany romantic drama A USEFUL GHOST has won the top prize at Cannes Critics’ Week.

The feature, which is the first Thai film to play in the parallel section for a number of years, won the inaugural AMI Paris Grand Prize.

This year’s jury was presided over by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen (The Beasts, Riot Police, The New Years), who was joined by Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah UK actor Daniel Kaluuya, Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara. SOURCE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/cannes-critics-week-winners-a-useful-ghost-imago-top-prizes-1236407401/)


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Kevin Spacey receives award

+ Emotional Kevin Spacey Speaks Out At Cannes About Blacklisting And Getting An Award: "It's Very Nice To Be Back". Spacey received an award and spoke about the history of blacklisting, especially Dalton Tumbo and Kirk Douglas, and thanked his manager Evan Lowenstein, who was present. Spacey has contested accusstions against him and been exonerated in court, but has remained unable to get mainstream work. SOURCE (https://deadline.com/2025/05/kevin-spacey-cannes-appearance-metoo-1236406604/)

[Chris Knipp]

MIRRORS NO. 3 (Christian Petzold) - Directors' Fortnight

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FROM CHRISTIAN PETZOLD'S MIRRORS NO. 3

This is the first time Petzold has brought a film to Cannes. A number of writers say it is a lighter effort. Ryan Latanzio's INDIEWIRE (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/mirrors-no-3-review-christian-petzold-1235121824/) says it is gossaner-light and gives MIROIRS NO. 3 only a B. In the film, a woman called Laura (Petzold's current muse Paula Beer) is in a car accident where her boyfriend is killed and she is adopted by Betty (Barbara Auer), a woman whose house she wanders up to. She begins wearing Betty's dead daughter's clothes, and looks like her, and becomes attracted to Betty's son, who resembles her late boyfriend. Identity, mirror-imaging, changed lives give the sense of a Petzold film. Guy Lodge in VARIETY calls it "an elegant sliver of a psychodrama." Lodge says this "isn’t one of the director’s major works, but is distinguished by his trademark pleasures of texture and tone — and "pushes his ongoing collaboration with star Paula Beer into ever more enigmatic territory." In a bulletin, a writer for FILM COMMENT SELECTS is persnickety, saying MIROIRS along with several other films, including NOUVELLE VAGUE and EDDINGTON, "lacks writerly ambition" and that this is "Petzold’s slightest effort to date." On the other hand, in SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/mirrors-no-3-review-rich-study-of-trauma-and-grief-unfolds-in-the-german-countryside/5204529.article) Wendy Ide says MIROIRS is "small but mighty" and "Although it’s a wisp of a thing, it delivers rich rewards." David Romney of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/miroirs-no-3-review-christian-petzold-paula-beer-1236207666/) stresses the ccomplexity of MIROIRS, how hard it us to summarize: "neat and tidy dramas about emotional healing," he says, "are not the gifted German writer-director’s thing." So the dismissal is not perhaps so obivious. I have loved Christian Petzold since JERICHOW (FCS 2008 (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1239)) and am curious to see this, looking forward to the Chopin and Ravel threaded through it and its withholdingness.

[Chris Knipp]

HIGHEST 2 LOWEST (Spike Lee) - Out of Competition

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DENZEL WASHINGTON IN HIGHEST 2 LOWEST

OFFICIAL TEASER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ2V8znYMSk&ab_channel=A24)

Spike Lees's new film is a cracking good New York-set Black (African American) noir respectfully riffing off Kurosawa's masterful 1963 HIGH AND LOW and starring Denzel Washington (their fifth collaboration) with Jeffrey Wright. It's about a kidnapping (just like the Kurosawa) but also has pungent things to say about where the USA is going. Robert Daniels reviews it for ROGEREBERT.COM (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/highest-2-lowest-spike-lee-film-review-2025) and gives it three and a half out of four stars. Over and over, Daniels says, it seems one thing, then is another, is an "unpredictable crime thriller that zips when you expect it to zoom." seems a bad Spike-Denzel collaboration, then is a great one; its opening image seems a loss of touch, then is masterful; seems a faithful Kurosawa HIGH AND LOW adaptation, then isn't one; seems "a long-winded procedural," then isn't one., and so on. Peter Debruge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/highest-2-lowest-review-spike-lee-1236402884/) explains Denzel Washington plays a music mogul who faces a series of big moral choices in a film "whose sensational third act more than justifies what might have seemed an unnecessary update." Does this mean it's uneven? In fact "brother bro" in his CANNES RECAP #3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvfv55_2f6Y&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert), strongly confirms that the early part is not at all up to the last part, that the film is "wierdly inconsistent," the music "absoluutely terrible," apparently throughout. Nontheless manstream American critics seem to see HIGHEST 2 LOWEST as confirming that Lee's still on a roll as he has been since 2018's BLACKKKLANSMAN. David Rodney in HOLLYWOOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/highest-2-lowest-review-denzel-washington-spike-lee-1236221654/) says the film's "precision-tooled plot engine, snappy pacing and crackling energy recall the technique of Lee's INSIDE MAN." The screenplay is by Alan Fox, based on the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain and the Akira Kurosawa film mentioned. Released in theaters Aug. 22 by A24, the film will ultimately stream on AppleTV. The reviews may tell more than you want to know, but Debruge identifies a scene at a Puerto Rican Day parade that is "a spectacular sequence that instantly ranks among the best New York City action set-pieces of all time, up there with the chase scene in 'The French Connection' and the Five Points battle in 'Gangs of New York.'"

[Chris Knipp]

SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachm Trier) - Cannes Competition

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RENATE REINSVE, INGA IBSDOTTER-LILLEAAS IN SENTIMENTAL VALUE

SENTIMENTAL VaLUE is the sixth feature by the now 51-year-old Norwegian auteur, again starring his outstanding recent collaborator Renate Reinsve and cowritten as usual with Eskil Vogt. It's Trier’s third film in Cannes Competition, after 2021’s THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD'S when breakout lead Reinsve won Cannes Best Actress. It is much anticipated by his cinephile fans, of whom I am one. A "moving family drama" (says Tim Grierson in his SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sentimental-value-review-renate-reinsve-and-joachim-trier-reunite-for-moving-family-drama/5205383.article) review), it gets a 2.7 on the Cannes Jury grid, the same third-highest rank as NOUVELLE VAGUE and ROMERIA,. But the Cannes concensus may be higher, even much higher. Stellan Skarsgård plays the renouwned filmmaker father and Renate Reinsve the estranged acrress daughter whom he seeks to cast in a semi autobiographical film with Elle FAnning as the more experienced American alternative casting. The story, says Peter Debruge in VARIETY, (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/sentimental-value-review-aafeksjonsverdi-1236405810/) proposes that "therapy through filmmaking" may actually be a valid concept sometimes. Clearly this is an intense study of family feelings, not so much Nora (Reinsve) reunited with Gustav (Skarsgård) as Nora and younger sister Anges (Ibsdotter Illeass) though Skarsgård is such a great actor, Debruge says, you might think otherwise. The girls' psychiatrist mother, whom Gustav divorced when Nora was very young, has just died when this all happens. Debruge explains Nora is so unsstable, with spectacular and hilarious stage fright-panic attack problems, that the pressure of her mother's death and her father's reentering her life combined might unhinge her. But involvement in the fim could stabilize that. The film Gustav will make will be a film about his own mother, who committed suicide, and he discusses it at length with Rachel (Fanning). (Those familiar with Trier's oeuvre know psychiatric problems and suicde are important and frequent themes.) Gustav will shoot the film at the impressive but partly crumbling ancestral home, occcupied for generations, to which he now proposses to move back: the house becomes a central plaayer. David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/sentimental-value-review-renate-reinsve-joachim-trier-1236223376/) calls this film "exquisite," and it looks like all the major critics very much like it. But it is ambiguous, open to different interpretations: Trier's films can be counted on to be intelligent, exciting, beautiful, often adventurous, and intellecually stimulating. Are there going to be awards here? That would be nice; maybe it's inevitable. The OSCAR EXPERT's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLeaveM4XSA&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) "broher bro" has posted a 14-minute video walk-and-talk rave at 3 a.m. to celebrate SENTIMENTAL VALUE as "truly great" and just as good as Trier's last film THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD that he calls "his best." "Brother bro" thinks SENTIMENTAL VAALUE is the best of the festival. Maybe it's the two beers he had with fest pals, but he predicts it willl get ten nominations and even thinks it could win Best Picture despite being a foreign film. Radhika Seth for VOGUE (https://www.vogue.com/article/sentimental-value-cannes-review) says SENTIMENTAL VALUE "might be the best film you'll see all year" and that if Trier doesn't win the Palme d'Or this time (THE WORSE PERSON IN THE WORLD having been passed over by Spike Lee's Jury in 2021 FOR TITANE), she'll be "really, truly outraged." I have loved Trier from the get-go. However, SENTIMENTAL VALUE's Jury Grid score is 2.7, same as ROMERÍA, below THE SECRET AGENT, 2.8 (which "brther bro" didn't "get"), which is below TWO PROSECUTORS and IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, which both got a 3.1. But from what "brother bro" says, there is massive, perhaps building, buzz about SENTIMENTAL VALUE. He thinks it's "as good as ANORA," and it got a massive 15-minute ovation.

[Chris Knipp]

YES (Nadav Lapid) - Directors' Fortight

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ARIEL BRONZ IN YES

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid "has never shied away from the violence of his homeland," says Jordan Mintzer in his HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/yes-review-director-nadav-lapid-israel-october-7-1236216610/) of Lapid's new film premiering in Cannes' Directors Fortnight section. His POLICEMAN, THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER, SYNONYMS (which was the Berlin Golden Bear winner and partly a hit with me, making me a fan of star Tom Mercier) and AHED'S KNEE all are films "where characters face explosive situations both externally and within." The last, AHED'S KNEE, was "already a furious cri de coeur against the powers-that-be in Israel." But YES "takes that premise to the next level. " It's a "decadant romp" through the "madness and misery" of post October 7 Israel. Bradshaw in his GUARDIAN review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/22/yes-review-nadav-lapid-israel-gaza) (four out of five stars) seconds this, noting that YES's "brilliant, showy set-pieces" add up to "a caricature of the decadence and heartlessness" of today's Israel. Jonathan Romney in SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/yes-review-nadav-lapids-post-october-7-satire-is-loudly-divisive/5205236.article) calls this "A full-on kamikaze approach to contemporary political satire." The focus is on a couple of entertainers in contemporary Israel: Y (Ariel Bronz), a jazz musician and performer, and Yasmine (Efrat Dor), a dancer, who abjectly sell their bodies. Bronz is approached to compose a new Irraeli national anthem. Backgrounds include charred ramains of Gaza and children singing a song of vicous revenge. Romney says ths "isn't an easy film to like" and wasn't meant to be; that it will shock and offend various camps. But some may, in part, like it, since as Bradshaw says it "With icy provocation" presents "Israel’s ruling classes. . . as decadent and indifferent to the slaughter and suffering of Gaza," which it plainly appears they are, while it's also sympathetic to those in Issrael shattered by the "butchery" of October 7. But does YES make clear that the massacre of October 7 was ansered by an extermination?

[Chris Knipp]

RESURECTION (Bi Gan) - in Competition

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The 35-year-old Chinese director Bi Gan's came onto the scene and caught everyone's attention with his first feature film KAILI BLUES (ND/NF 2016 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4120-New-Directors-New-Films-2016-Film-Comments-Selects&p=34482#post34482)) and he became a major influence on Chinese cinema with his 2018 LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (in Un Certain Regard at CAnnes), NYFF 2018 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4556-New-York-Film-Festival-2018&p=37580#post37580)), which asks us to reexamine our notions of memory and time. His new FILM, RESURECTION, Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/22/resurrection-review-bi-gan-china) reports, presents an "ambitious alternate reality" where people "can live indefinitely." A "dissident dreamer" travels through history reincarnating into "different guises." Packed with dazzling sets and effects, and touching on multiple genres and styles, it is a sometimes exhausting ride – especially when we're struggling to engage with a changing cast of characters rooted in Chinese places, history, legend and religion. It's les emtionally powerful than his 2018 film, Bradshaw says, because it's a "Portmanteau film," a collection of disperate episodes. But it's also a memorable and exhilarating fide. It's "a kind of twentieth-century monster story," writes Lee Marshall in his SCREENDAILY review. (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/resurrection-review-jackson-yee-stars-in-bi-gans-sprawling-cinematic-vision/5205429.article) While KAILI BLUES was a kind of road movie and LONG DAY'S JOURNEY was a kind of missing person quest, RESURECTION is "almost entirely unclssifiable." It's a trip through Chinese history. Sophie Monks Kaufman in INDIEWIRE (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/resurrection-review-bi-gan-1235125957/) isn't sure if this is "imaginative, boundary-defying cinema," or just "an endurance test." She says "to call it impenetrable is an understatement." The tireless Bradshaw plunges into summarizing it, but "wasn’t sure about the silent-movie type effects," though did think it is "a work of real artistry" and gives it four out of four stars. Jessica Kiang of VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/resurrection-review-bi-gan-kuangye-shidai-1236406525/) found RESURECTION "a marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition that is actually five or six movies," each of which is "at once playful and peculiar and part of an overarchingly melancholy elegy for the dream of 20th-century cinema and the lives we lived within it." She says the film mourns the time when we gave the same complete attention to movies as we do to our dreams, but asks us to do that again. I can imagine the Oscar Expert's "brother bro" balking at the complexity of this, but passionate film students drooling at the prospect of it. Runtime 156 minutes.

[Chris Knipp]

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ELLE FANNING AND JOACHIM TRIER, SENTIMENTAL VALUE

CANNES #78 2025: THE AWARDS

PALME D'OR: A SIMPLE ACCIDENT (Jafar Panahi)
GRAND PRIX: SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachim Trier)
JURY PRIZE: tie between SIRAT (Oliver Laxe) and THE SOUND OF FALLING (Mascha Schilinski)
BEST DIRECTOR: KLEBER MENDOCA FILHO for THE SECRET AGENT
BEST ACTOR (Competition Films): WAGNOR MOURA (for THE SECRET AGENT by Mendoça Filho)
BEST SCREENPLAY: YOUNG MOTHERS/JEUNES MÈRES( Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
BEST ACTRESS: NADIA MELLITI (for LA PETITE DERIÈRE)
SPECIAL AWARD: RESURRECTION (Bi Gan)
CAMÉRA D'OR: THE PRESIDENT'S CAKE (Hasan Hadi, in DIRECTOR'S FORTNIGHT), with spefial mention to MY FATHER'S SHADOW (Akinola Davies Jr. in UN CERTAIN REGARD)
QUEER PALM: LA PETITE DERRIÈRE (Hafsia Herzi)
PALM DOG: "PANDA" (in THE LOVE THAT REMAINS by Hlynur Palmason)
UN CERTAIN REGARD AWARDS:
UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZE: THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO by Diego Céspedes
JURY PRIZE: A POET by Simón Mesa Soto
BEST ACTOR: FRANK DILLANE (for URCHIN by Harris Dickinson)
BEST ACTRESS: CLÉO DIARA (for I ONLY REST IN THE STORM by Pedro Pinho)
BEST SCREENPLAY: PILLION by Harry Lighton
BEST DIRECTING: ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA by Arab & Tarzan Nasser


Most of my original awards listings above were wrong - I had copied an AI -created list. Dont trust AI! Peter Bradshaw got most of his GUARDIAN predictions (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/23/palme-dor-winner-cannes-film-festival-who-will-win) wrong. The Oscar Expert's "brother bro" yesterday in his prediction video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXFFKh6HLg&t=51s&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) seemed to do better, but he was more ruminating over alternate possiblities and guessing correctly what films would be scoring somewhere. He seemed to get the PALME D'OR right, but that was a wrong list. He wanted SIRAT,a personal favorite, to win something, and, of course, it did, tied with SOUND OF FALLING for the Jury Prize. Both Bradshaw and "brother bro" knew the top films of the festival; it's hard not to. It's just hard, if not impossible, to guess what they'll get.

As Peter Bradshaw noted in his GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/23/palme-dor-winner-cannes-film-festival-who-will-win) roundup, Cannes this year "had a lot to live up to after last year’s award-winners, headline-grabbers and social media meltdowners Anora, The Substance and Emilia Pérez." He wondered if the big fallen palm tree on the Croisette was a sign of . . . something (a partial decline?). But we'll see. Just the lack of big headline-grabbers doesn't mean it wasn't a good festival. These top-mentioned titles all sound really interesting: A SIMPLE ACCIDENT, SENTIMENTAL VALUE, SIRAT, SOUND OF FALLING, THE SECRET AGENT, and the others mentioned in prizes too, are sure to be worth looking for.

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KLEBER MENDOçCA FILHO PICKED UP TWO AWARDS, BEST DIRECTOR & BEST ACTOR FOR WAGNER MOURA, WHO WAS ABSENT

[Chris Knipp]

YOUNG MOTHERS (JEUNES MÈRES) (Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne)

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DETAIL FROM THE DARDENNES' YOUNG MOTHERS

David Rooney in his HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/young-mothers-review-dardenne-brothers-1236229419/) says it's a mistake to think the "stripped-down aesthetic" and humanistic values mean you know what you're getting with the Dardennes: there are always surprises. He also mentions that they have been helping produce Ken Loach's similiarly conceived films from England since 2009. YOUNG MOTHERS is notably more docu-drama than usual for the Belgian brothers, and also focuses this time, which is also different, on multiple stories, finding and following four young mothers and one about to give birth at a maternal support shelter near Liège. Each young woman has her own specific story. Peter Bradshaw's GUARDIAN review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/23/jeunes-meres-the-young-mothers-home-review-dardennes-brothers) awards YOUNG MOTHERS five out of five stars and summarizes the film as a "poignant, compassionate work of unforced social realism" that shows how "Teen mums are taught how to take care of their babies or prepare them for adoption amid drug addiction, mental illness and family conflict." He says it's "quietly outstanding" and that "gentleness, compassion and love" are its "keynotes." The film presents each of the five mothers and their multiple issues the center helps them deal with, and it lets us fall in love with the babies. The basic question, says Bradshaw, is whether, having rejected abortion as an option, giving up the baby to adoption is or is not then the more responsible choice. Peter Debruge in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/young-mothers-review-jeune-meres-1236407593/) says the "widened focus" makes YOUNG MOTHERS the Dardennes' "most convincing film yet" and their "best film in more than a decade." We begin to understand how it came effectively to fifth place in the Cannes awards with the Best Screenplay award.

[Chris Knipp]

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JAFAR PANAHI WITH THE PALME D'OR: AN AWARD WELL EARNED

MORE ABOUT THE CANNES 78 AWARDS AND AWARD FILMS

Bradshaw comments eloquently (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/24/jafar-panahis-cannes-victory-is-a-wonderful-moment-for-an-amazingly-courageous-film-maker) on why it's great that Jafar Panahi won the highest award at this year's Cannes for his new film IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT. He is, he says, the most courageous director in the world. He points out the obvious qualifications. He has endured a 20-year ban on filmmaking in Iran and spent six years in prison there, and he has gone on making films, skillfully pointed political ones, through all this, year after year, in protest against the oppressive regime of his country. (Don't miss his son's charming and pointed 2021 debut, HIT THE ROAD (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4906), as well.)

In truth his films have not been very enjoyable or very real the past few years, but there's hope that this one will be, as HIT THE ROAD is. Some would vote like the French Letterboxd contributor who said that Joachim Trier's SENTIMENTAL VALUE is "la véritable Palme d'Or dans mon coeur" (the true Palme d'Or in my heart). And if Mendoça Filho's THE SECRET AGENT is as great as Bradshaw says and SIRAT is as great as "brother bro" thinks, they may outstrip Panahi in our hearts as well. Awards are given by the Competition Jury, headed by Juliette Binoche, with only 9 members. They don't quite mesh with the critics better shown by the Jury Grid.

The Oscar Expert YouTube bros Cole and Mason, in a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jRgIYLcpYk&t=1426s&ab_channel=TheOscarExpert) reunited after Mason's sojourj in Cannes, discuss the films and future awards prospects for the most celebrated or "Palmares"-gifted films of the festival. "Brother bro" showed a photo of Panahi sitting back with his arms folded over his head, plainly luxuriating in the recognition of his courage and his skill. They also go over the top-ranked Cannes films and other ones we haden't heard of yet, such as the French animations ARCO and LITTLE AMÉLIE, which have good prospects. They too put in a plug for HIT THE ROAD. They don't miss much.

Kudos to both Peter Bradshaw, who provides some of the most helpful and accessible Cannes reviews and commentary, and the Oscar Expert's "brother bro," whose videos were lively and acccessible, not to mention thorough and intelligent. I won't forget his lyrical rant early in the morning thrhough the streets of Cannes extolling one of his two personal favorites, JOCHIM TRIER'S SENTIMENTAL VALUE. These two guys did the work and brought the goods day after day.

I also owe this vicarius coverage to the many other excellent critics who were there, especially trade journal heavies like Jordan Mintzer, Lee Marshall, Peter Debruge, Jessica Kiang, David Rooney, Guy Lodge, and the other veterans who amaze with their fortitude as well as clarity in covering the festival. They are the best because they provide daily coverage and thus make this most important cinematic event of the year come to life as it happens. I hope readers of this thread will follow some of the links I've provided all along, because they do build a sense of what it feels like to watch these films - and to experience the thrill and excitement of Cannes.

[Chris Knipp]

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JOSH O'CONNOR IN THE MASTERMIND

THE MASTERMIND (Kelly Reichardt) - In Competition

Josh O'Connor plays something like his role in Rohrwacher's LA CHIMERA only more incompetent by far: an uncmployed carpenter in Nixon-era Massachusetts who imagines he can become a successful art thief, and steal four Arthur Doves from a local art gallery using some very unreliable hired toughs. This goes awry and so does his life. Bradshaw gives it four out of five stars, loving its low-keyed ironies. The Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-mastermind/) is a modest 73%, but there are enthusiastic reviews from Jessica Kiang in VARIETY (https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-mastermind-review-kelly-reichardt-josh-oconnor-1236407767/) and David Rooney in HOLLLYWOOD REPORTER (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-mastermind-review-josh-oconnor-kelly-reichardt-1236228702/). Kiang calls it "gorgeously rumpled," and Rooney cals it "an understated, funny-sad heist movie like no other." It sounds like some may have trouble tuning into the departure from genre tradition, but Bradshaw loves "the super-naturalistic depiction of an art gallery robbery" that has "no dramatic music on the soundtrack (quite as it would be in real life)" so that Reichardt "has unerringly located the unglamour in the heist." This sounds iike something really special, very much suited to the rumpled, disreputable side of Josh O'Connor we saw also in Guadagnino's CHALLENGERS, honed into "hangdog near-charm" here. We like this kind of role because our own dreams often seem futile and we want to forgive that. O'Connor has gone a long way from playing Prince Charles. In fact Alison Willmore in VULTURE (https://www.vulture.com/article/the-mastermind-review-josh-oconnors-best-performance-yet.html) suggests this is the culmination of a series of roles O'Connor has been playing. Alana Haim, Bill Camp and Hope Davis are also featured. David Rooney says, "Leave it to Kelly Reichardt to make a '70s movie that looks and feels like a lost '70s movie, from its scruffy visual aesthetic to its muted colors, its patient character observation and unhurried pacing to its unstinting investment in an underdog protagonist..." This premiered near the end of the Cannes festival. An American gem to watch for.