The Cannes Film Festival has announced its official line-up for this year’s selection of films. Taking place from May 15-25, the 77th Cannes Film Festival will screen the new work of several renowned filmmakers.
These include the film Megalopolis directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Adam Driver, George Miller’s Furiosa starring Anya Taylor-Joy and the first instalment of Kevin Costner’s much anticipated Western epic Horizon, an American Saga.
Director and writer George Lucas will receive the Honorary Palme d’Or award at the closing ceremony of the festival to pay tribute to his contribution to cinema, while Barbie writer and director Greta Gerwig will preside over the jury.
In addition to these titles, there will also be a number of movies showcased by regional filmmakers. From powerful stories of perseverance to thrillers bound to change the lives of everyday people and the biography of one of culture’s most polarising figures, here's what will be screening.
Motel Destino
Algerian-Brazilian director Karim Ainouz whose psychological thriller Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law officially made its premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, will be showcasing another film this year.
Playing in the competition section of the festival, Motel Destino is the director’s eighth fiction film and has been described as an “intimate picture of a youth whose future has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite”.
The erotic thriller is also a love story between a young man who is actively fighting against a system that oppresses him and wants him dead and a woman who is fighting patriarchy in her own world.
The Apprentice
Also playing in the competition section is Iranian-Dutch director Ali Abbasi’s film The Apprentice.
The biographical drama explores the early years of Donald Trump's life as a real estate businessman in New York in the 1970s and 80s. The story’s main plot will focus on the relationship between Trump and his mentor Roy Cohn. The film is expected to explore themes such as power and corruption.
With Abbasi as director, the film was written by Gabriel Sherman and stars Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump.
Everybody Loves Touda
Screening in the Cannes Premier section of the festival, Everybody Loves Touda by French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch is the story of a young singer and poet named Shaeirat, raising her deaf-mute son in a small village. While she performs in bars under the gaze of men, Shaeirat plans to head to Casablanca to gain fame, better opportunities and a more secure future for her son.
However, things aren’t as easy as she believed they would be in Casablanca, and she must navigate through challenges that will test her strength and determination.
Everybody Loves Touda was co-written by Ayouch and his wife Maryam Touzani, the actor-turned-filmmaker. The couple also co-wrote the film The Blue Kaftan, directed by Touzani and produced by Ayouch.
The Blue Kaftan made its premiere at Cannes in 2022 and won the Fipresci prize as well becoming the first Moroccan film to be shortlisted for an Oscar nomination.
Norah
Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi’s debut will be screened in Un Certain Regard this year, the section of the festival dedicated to showcasing films with unusual and innovative styles and techniques and non-traditional stories.
It's the first movie in the Cannes Film Festival official selection for Saudi Arabia.
Norah is a drama set in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s and follows the story of two unlikely characters whose meeting changes the course of their lives.
Nader is a new teacher who arrives to a remote village where he meets Norah. Her curiosity and bravery inadvertently inspires him, and Norah finds herself intrigued by Nader and starts to question what life could be like outside her village and the world she has known her whole life.
The film, also written by Alzaidi, won a script fund award from the Saudi Film Commission’s Daw Film Competition, an initiative by the country’s Ministry of Culture to support young filmmakers. Norah is also the first Saudi feature film to be shot entirely in the AlUla region.
The 77th Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 15-25.
