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.
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
