CANNES2025 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES 2025 - first overview.
SOURCE.
The 78th edition runs May 13-24, 2025.

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
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

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. See comments on the Competition lineup from The Oscar Expert bros (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]

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.



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]

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]

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

[Chris Knipp]

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

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.


FROM CHRISTIAN PETZOLD'S MIRRORS NO. 3

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES first day, May 13, 2025



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.

[Chris Knipp]

JULIETTE ARMANET AND BASTIEN BOUILLON IN LEAVE ONE DAY

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

TRAILER

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 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, like Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN, who called LEAVE ONE DAY "bafflingly underpowered and totally panned it.)

[Chris Knipp]

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. 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.


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 gives five out of five stars. In her VARIETY 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 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.


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, 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, 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, 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.


NEWCOMER ELOY POHU IN ENZO

ENZO (Laurent Cantet, Robin Campillo), 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; Jordan Mintzer reviews it for THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.. 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.


LAURENT CANTET (1961-2024)

[Chris Knipp]

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

CANNES 2025 DAY THREE

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 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, 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 . 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 by Elena Lazic. Peter Bradshaw 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


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 says is like no other film he's ever seen before, " a transfixing chronicle" and "a cinematic. tone poem." The GUARDIAN's Peter Bradshaw 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 calls it "a work of thrilling ambition." Damon Wise in DEADLINE calls it "a masterclass in thrilling, unnerving brilliance." The headline of Guy Lodge's VARIETY review 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 rating:91% based on 11 reviews.


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


JOAQUIN PHOENIX, LEFT,IN EDDINGTON

TRAILER

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 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.


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 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


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 , 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.


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 calls it "captivating" and "vibrant." Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN (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 (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

[Chris Knipp]

NOUVELLE VAGUE (Richard Linklater) - clueless homage?


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 "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.