The announcement of the Cannes film festival’s selection list, like the unveiling of a mountain of still-wrapped Christmas presents, is a ritual that this year again affirmed its high-minded internationalism, its loyalty to its big-hitting auteurs of festivals past, its commitment to cinema as a live, in-person event and its repudiation of movies that are only shown on streaming TV. General delegate Thierry Frémaux was at pains to emphasise that that Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro – showing out of competition and probably his hottest ticket – is getting a proper theatrical release.
And for Cannes Kremlinologists and readers of the runes, Thursday’s announcement also shows the festival’s distinctive semi-detachment from the sexual and gender politics of the Anglo-Hollywood world. Of the films in competition, just six are from women directors: Catherine Breillat, Justine Triet, Jessica Hausner, Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Alice Rohrwacher and Kaouther Ben Hania. Score-keeping on the issue is said to exasperate the Cannes selectors; Cannes has its first ever female president in the form of former Warner Bros executive Iris Knobloch and in fact the opening film is directed by a woman: the historical drama Jeanne du Barry by Maïwenn. Yet starring as Louis XV is the bedraggled and contentious figure of Johnny Depp, so recently in an acrimonious court case with Amber Heard: which would in itself make North American festivals chary of giving the film quite so much prominence.
As for other issues, there are no Russian or Ukrainian films in competition, and this lineup is very different from last year’s in which Putin’s war was a hot-button issue. But the topic of climate crisis is there with Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero, which is reportedly about youth resistance in Austria.
