Cannes newbie Lola Petticrew will get their moment in the sun when British filmmaker Clio Barnard’s powerfully resonant I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has its premiere at the 58th Directors’ Fortnight. Adapted by Enda Walsh from Keiran Goddard’s stunning 2024 novel about social and class inequality, the film charts the lives of five 30-year-old childhood friends. “They’re […]

In the wake of winning the top documentary prize at Cannes, director Pegah Ahangarani‘s Rehearsals for a Revolution has been scooped up by Sony Pictures Classics. SPC took rights in North America, Latin America, Asia (sans Japan), New Zealand, Turkey Portugal, and global airlines. The pic about decades of political repression in Iran won the L’Oeil […]

What’s historically been great about the Cannes jury press conference at the end of the festival is that it provides a window into what this conclave was thinking and the choices made for award selections. However, few reporters got the chance to ask hard hitting questions, and the jury was steered by the conference moderator […]

Lukas Dhont’s World War I drama Coward received a 13-minute ovation Thursday after the lights came up on its world premiere screening at the Cannes Film Festival. It was one of the biggest responses to a film in this year’s competition lineup. The queer romantic drama is the Belgium-born Dhont’s second feature film in the […]

Léa Mysius’ latest feature The Birthday Party (Histoires de la Nuit) earned a 12-minute ovation Friday evening at the Cannes Film Festival following its debut screening in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. It marked the last world-premiere screening in this year’s 22-strong competition lineup. The audience broke into cheers twice during the screening of the home-invasion […]

Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord has won the Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Previously, Russian director Andreï Zviaguintsev’s Minotaur scooped the Grand Prize at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Directorial duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi and Paweł Pawlikowski jointly won the Best Director Prize for La Bola Negra and Fatherland respectively. German director […]

Bleecker Street’s horror thriller Victorian Psycho provided an oasis of fun in a sea of serious pics during the wind-down at Cannes, earning a seven-minute standing ovation on Thursday afternoon. The pic, which is playing in Un Certain Regard, is directed by Bronxville, NY born Zachary Wigon and follows an eccentric young governess in 1858, […]

Pedro Almodóvar was asked by one Spanish journalist at today’s Cannes press conference for his pic Bitter Christmas about “Hollywood being in crisis and Canal+ threatening creators.” The latter refers to Canal+ Chair and CEO, the Maxime Saada, who said that the conglom won’t work with those who signed the Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” petition which sounded […]

On today’s Crew Call podcast straight from the Cannes Film Festival, we chat with director James Gray, who returned to the Croisette with his sixth feature, the competition title Paper Tiger. Also on today’s episodes are his producers, Oscar winner Anthony Katagas and Oscar nominee Rodrigo Teixeira, who talk about mounting the filmmaker’s penchant for […]

Tilda Swinton warned that cinema needs to avoid “formulaic” work and privilege “messy, adventurous experiences” to survive in the age of AI in an onstage conversation at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. “As long as what we’re producing is not formulaic and in some way tiring for the audience, AI doesn’t have a chance, […]

Pedro Almodóvar has never shied away from making movies close to himself and the act of making movies themselves. With his latest, Bitter Christmas, he creates the parallel stories of a successful writer-director who is experiencing creative block, and a group of people 22 years earlier who may or not figure into his latest screenplay. […]

Dernsie, Mike Mendez’s Bruce Dern documentary, received a six-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere Wednesday night. The Cannes Classics film — full title: Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern — follows the eponymous actor as he looks back over his 65-year career, working with such greats as John Wayne, Elia Kazan, […]