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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Catherine Shoard

Cannes 2023: Ken Loach, Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Glazer premieres feature in strong lineup

Ken Loach, Jonathan Glazer, Martin Scorsese, who all have films at this year’s Cannes.
Ken Loach, Jonathan Glazer, Martin Scorsese, who all have films at this year’s Cannes. Composite: Shutterstock/EPA

New films by Jonathan Glazer, Ken Loach and Martin Scorsese will premiere at this year’s Cannes, after the festival directors announced one of the strongest lineups in recent memory.

At a press conference in Paris on Thursday, general delegate Thierry Frémaux and incoming president Iris Knobloch unveiled a programme dominated by arthouse heavyweights and returning Cannes favourites, such as Todd Haynes, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Wim Wenders, Wes Anderson, Nanni Moretti, Aki Kaurismäki and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The festival has also broken its record by listing six films from female directors in competition, including new titles from Catherine Breillat, Alice Rohrwacher and Jessica Hausner.

Glazer, the British director who rose to fame with Sexy Beast, has not made a feature-length film since 2013’s Under the Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansson as an alien in Glasgow, and which regularly features in critics’ lists of the best films ever made.

His new film is another adaptation, of Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest, about a Nazi officer who falls in love with the wife of the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The German cast is led by Sandra Hüller, who starred in 2016 Cannes film Toni Erdmann.

In 2019, Glazer drew parallels between the premise for The Zone of Interest and his five-minute short, The Fall, a surreal phantasmagoria in which a masked mob hang a man in a forest.

“I think fear is ever-present,” Glazer told the Guardian. “And that drives people to irrational behaviour. A mob encourages an abdication of personal responsibility. The rise of National Socialism in Germany for instance was like a fever that took hold of people. We can see that happening again.”

Glazer also indicated the two projects were both inspired by his interest in photos of Germans thrilled by the horrors they were witnessing.

Loach’s new film, The Old Oak, is set around the last remaining pub in a small mining village in the north-east. A wave of Syrian refugees have been housed nearby, leading to tensions with the locals, including those played by I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You supporting actor Dave Turner. Loach’s regularwriter, Paul Laverty, also returns.

Haynes also re-teams with a frequent collaborator, the actor Julianne Moore, for his latest film, May December. Moore plays a woman whose marriage to a much younger man (played by Charles Melton) is tested after an actor (Natalie Portman) interviews the couple about their relationship.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Photograph: Lucasfilm Ltd./PA

Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited 1920s-set crime drama about the Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation, had already been announced as premiering at the festival out of competition. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jesse Plemons, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow.

Also previously announced was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the latest adventure for Harrison Ford’s now 80-year-old archeologist, co-starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen. The film follows Top Gun: Maverick in the coveted “blockbuster spot” in the programme.

Asteroid City reassembles Wes Anderson’s regular repertory company, with the addition of Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson, for a sci-fi tinged story set at a junior cadet convention in the mid-1950s United States.

Hausner’s new film, Club Zero, was shot in Oxford and stars Mia Wasikowska as a “conscious eating” teacher at an international boarding school. Other staff and family are played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, Elsa Zylberstein and Amir El-Masry.

Last year’s Palme d’Or was won by Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund’s yacht-set satire on the super-rich. It was a second victory for Östlund, after 2017’s The Square. This year the writer/director will head the festival’s jury.

Vying for further Palmes at the 76th festival will be Loach – who has already won twice – and fellow winners Hirokazu Kore-eda and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Plot details for the new films by those film-makers are scarce. Kore-eda’s latest is called Monster, while Ceylan’s, titled About Dry Grasses, is reportedly four hours long.

A number of titles rumoured to be debuting on the Croisette were not mentioned on Thursday, although the festival traditionally adds a handful over the following weeks. Among these were new films by Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Yorgos Lanthimos and Alexander Payne.

Cannes film festival runs from 16 to 27 May, with the event kicking off with Jeanne du Barry, directed by and starring Maïwenn in the title role, opposite Johnny Depp as Louis XV.

Cannes 2023 official selection: the full list

Competition

Club Zero, dir: Jessica Hausner

The Zone of Interest, dir: Jonathan Glazer

Fallen Leaves, dir: Aki Kaurismäki

Four Daughters, dir: Kaouther Ben Hania

Asteroid City, dir: Wes Anderson

Anatomie d’Une Chute, dir: Justine Triet

Monster, dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Il Sol dell’Avvenire, dir: Nanni Moretti

La Chimera, dir: Alice Rohrwacher

L’Eté Dernier, dir: Catherine Breillat

La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, dir: Tran Anh Hung

About Dry Grasses, dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

May December, dir: Todd Haynes

Rapito, dir: Marco Bellocchio

Firebrand, dir: Karim Ainouz

The Old Oak, dir: Ken Loach

*Banel et Adama, dir: Ramata-Toulaye Sy

Perfect Days, dir: Wim Wenders

Jeunesse, dir: Wang Bing

Out of competition

Killers of the Flower Moon, dir: Martin Scorsese

Jeanne du Barry, dir: Maïwenn

The Idol, dir: Sam Levinson

Cobweb, dir: Kim Jee-woon

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, dir: James Mangold

Midnight screenings

Omar La Fraise, dir: Elias Belkeddar

Acide, dir: Just Philippot

Kennedy, dir: Anurag Kashyap

Cannes premiere

Le Temps d’Aimer, dir: Katell Quillevere

Kubi, dir: Takeshi Kitano

Cerrar los Ojos, dir: Victor Erice

Bonnar, Pierre et Marthe, dir: Martin Provost

Special screenings

Anselm, dir: Wim Wenders

Occupied City, dir: Steve McQueen

Man in Black, dir: Wang Bing

Un Certain Regard

*How to Have Sex, dir: Molly Manning Walker

The Delinquents, dir: Rodrigo Moreno

Simple Comme Sylvain, dir: Monia Chokri

The Settlers, dir: Felipe Galvez

The Mother of All Lies, dir: Asmae El Moodier

The Buriti Flower, dirs: Joao Salaviza & Renee Nader

*Goodbye Julia, dir: Mohammed Kordofani

*Omen, dir: Baloji Thasiani

The Breaking Ice, dir: Anthony Chen

Rosalie, dir: Stéphanie Di Giusto

The New Boy, dir: Warwick Thornton

*If Only I Could Hibernate, dir: Zoljargal Purevdash

*Hopeless, dir: Kim Chang-hoon

*Rien à Perdre, dir: Delphine Deloget

*Les Meutes, dir: Kamal Lazraq

Terrestrial Verses, dirs: Ali Asgari & Alireza Khatami

La Regne Animal, dir: Thomas Cailley

*Denotes first film eligible for the Camera d’Or

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