Cult favourite directors Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Ken Loach and Wim Wenders will be among the filmmakers competing for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the organisers announced on Thursday, with the 76th edition set to be a star-studded affair.
The world's leading cinema shindig returns to the Côte d'Azur from May 16-28, having bagged the world premieres of the new Indiana Jones and Martin Scorsese movies, as well as the comeback film from Johnny Depp.
Anderson's latest, "Asteroid City", has a typically A-list roster including Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson, while Haynes has a romance, "May/December" starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Hollywood loves the French Riviera as a launchpad for its glossier fare, with "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Elvis" getting their world premieres at the festival last year.
This time sees "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny", with Harrison Ford as guest of honour for his fifth and final appearance as the iconic adventuring archaeologist, alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Antonio Banderas.
Also confirmed is Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon", starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
And arguably the biggest star of 2023 (and so-called "Internet daddy") following TV hit "The Last of Us", Pedro Pascal will be joined by Ethan Hawke for a "queer Western" short film, "Strange Way of Life", by Spanish cult favourite Pedro Almodovar.
The line-up also includes a record six women filmmakers out of 19 in the main competition, beating last year's record of five. They include Italy's Alice Rohrwacher and a feature debut from Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy.
Depp's return
Two-time Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach is back with "The Old Oak", focused on the last remaining pub in a small English village where local people are leaving because the mines have closed.
Wim Wenders, Cannes winner with "Paris, Texas" in 1984, comes back to competition with "Perfect Days", while another former Palme d’Or winner, Italy's Nanni Moretti returns to the Croisette with "Il Sol dell'Avvenire", a Rome-set feature set in the 1950s.
The coveted Palme d'Or, which can give a major boost for arthouse cinema such as last year's winner "Triangle of Sadness", which went on to win several Oscar nominations. Its director, Sweden's Ruben Ostlund, heads this year's jury.
A fiery start is guaranteed thanks to opening night film "Jeanne du Barry", which sees Depp play French king Louis XV in his first role since an explosive defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.
As if that was not enough to inflame social media, the film's star and director, Maiwenn, had a criminal complaint lodged against her last week for allegedly assaulting a journalist – yanking his head back and spitting in his face – in a Paris restaurant.
Meanwhile arthouse fans are particularly excited for the return of British director Jonathan Glazer with a Holocaust-set romance "The Zone of Interest" based on a novel by Martin Amis.
The competition also includes past Palme d'Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan as well as celebrated auteurs such as South Korea's Hirokazu Kore-eda and Finland's Aki Kaurismaki.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
