No major film festival has been more shaken up during the pandemic than Cannes, which was forced to cancel the 2019 event and push back dates for a packed comeback event the following year to midsummer. Now, this all-important showcase of global arts cinema appears to be gaining traction again, thanks to a diverse cast that includes everything from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis to the directorial debut of his granddaughter Riley Keough, whose Beast (co-directed by Gina Gammell) is set in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
At the press conference on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux announced optimistically that new films by George Miller (“Three Thousand Years of Longing”), David Cronenberg (“Crimes of the Future”), Kelly Reichardt (“Showing Up “) and James Gray (“Armageddon Time”) in the official selection.
Accompanied by outgoing festival president Pierre Lescure, Frémaux announced the opening film, Final Cut, by Michel Hazanvicius, which had originally been selected for Sundance but was withdrawn after the festival went virtual amid a surge in the Omicron variant in mid-January. (The year before the pandemic, Cannes opened with another zombie comedy, Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die.)
Frémaux also confirmed the world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick alongside a tribute to Tom Cruise on the second day of the festival, which is set to take place again in-person May 17-28. Alongside Elvis, two music-focused features celebrate 20th-century rock legends: Ethan Coen’s documentary, Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, and Moonage Daydream, a montage-driven midnight film tribute to Ethan Coen’s David Bowie by Brett Morgen in the style of his Kurt -Cobain Films.
The competition line-up includes new work from several returning Palme d’Or winners: Ruben Ostlund’s social satire Triangle of Sadness, Japan’s helmsman Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Korea set Broker, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s politically charged RMN and the Belgian duo the immigrant-centric “Tori and Lokita” by the Dardenne brothers.
SCHEDULE OF CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2022
COMPETITION
“Armageddon Time”, James Gray (USA)
“Boy from Heaven”, Tarik Saleh (Sweden)
“Broker”, Kore-eda Hirokazu (Japan)
“Brother and Sister” OR “Frère et Sœur”, Arnaud Desplechin (France)
“Close”, Lucas Dhont (Belgium)
“Crime of the Future”, David Cronenberg (Canada)
“Decision to Leave” OR “Haeojil Gyeolsim”, Park Chan-Wook (South Korea)
“Eo” OR “Hi-Han”, Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland)
“Forever Young” OR “Les Almandiers”, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (France)
“Holy Spider”, Ali Abbasi (Iran)
“Leila’s Brothers”, Saeed Roustaee (Iran)
“Nostalgia”, Mario Martone (Italy)
“RMN”, Cristian Mungiu (Romania)
“Turn Up”, Kelly Reichardt (US)
“Stars at Noon”, Claire Denis (France)
“Tchaïkovski’s Wife” OR “Zhena Chaikovskogo”, Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia)
“Tori and Lokita”, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (Belgium)
“Triangle of Sadness”, Ruben Östlund (Sweden)
Courtesy of Neon
UNSAFE ATTENTION
“All the People I’ll Never Be” OR “Retour à Séoul”, Davy Chou (Cambodia)
“Beast”, Riley Keough and Gina Gammell (USA)
“Burning Days”, Emin Alper (Turkey)
“Butterfly Vision”, Maksim Nakonechnyi (Ukraine)
“Corset”, Marie Krützer (Austria)
“Domingo and the Mist”, Ariel Escalante Meza (Costa Rica)
“Joyland”, Saim Sadiq (Pakistan)
“Metronome”, Alexandru Belc (Romania)
“Plan 75”, Hayakawa Chie (Japan)
“Rodeo”, Lola Quivoron (France)
“Sick of Myself”, Kristoffer Borgli (Norway)
“The Silent Twins”, Agnieszka Smocynska (Poland)
“The Stranger”, Thomas M. Wright (Australia)
“Volada Land”, Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland)
“The Worst” OR “Les Pires”, Lise Akora and Romane Gueret (France)
Final Cut Courtesy of the Sundance Institute
EXCEPT COMPETITION
“Elvis”, Baz Luhrmann (US-Australia)
“Final Cut” OR “Z (Comme Z)”, Michel Hazanvicius (France) – OPENER
“Mascarade”, Nicolas Bedos (France)
“November”, Cédric Jimenez (France)
“Three Thousand Years of Longing”, George Miller (Australia)
“Top Gun: Maverick”, Joseph Kosinski (USA)
midnight screenings
“Fumer Fait Tousser”, Quentin Dupieux (France)
“Hunting”, Lee Jung-Jae (South Korea)
“Moonage Daydream”, Brett Morgen (US)
SPECIAL SHOWS
“Everything That Breathes”, Shaunak Sen (India)
“The Natural History of Destruction”, Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine)
“Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in the Mind”, Ethan Coen (USA)
CANNES PREMIERE
“Dodo”, Panos H. Koutras (Greece)
“Irma Vep”, Olivier Assayas (France)
“Nightfall”, Marco Bellocchio (Italy)
“Nos Frangins”, Rachid Bouchareb (France)