The 75th Cannes International Film Festival has announced the official program for its 2022 edition at a press conference in Paris.
Cannes Festival President Pierre Lescure and General Delegate/Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux shared the competition, Un Certain Regard and Out-of-Competition titles for the 75th edition of the event, which will be held from 17 to 18 June, at a press conference in Paris on Thursday morning 28 May takes place. The full line-up can be found at the end of this post.
In competition, Canadian author David Cronenberg returns to Cannes with Crimes of the Future, starring Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen. Border director Ali Abbasi will present Holy Spider in competition and Claire Denis returns to the Croisette with The Stars at Noon starring Margaret Qualley.
Z, a zombie comedy by French director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), will open this year’s festival in Cannes on June 17.
Cannes regular James Gray is back in competition with his latest Armageddon Time, a coming-of-age tale about growing up in Queens in the 1980s, starring Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins and Succession star Jeremy Strong.
Japan’s 2018 Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) returns to Cannes after a trip to Venice with his previous feature film, the French-language drama The Truth (2019). The 59-year-old Japanese author will compete in Cannes’ main competition with ‘Broker,’ a Korean-language film with an A-list cast of Korean stars: Song Kang-ho (Parasite), Bae Doona (The Host), Gang Dong-won and Lee Ji Eun.
South Korean champion Park Chan-wook returns to the competition in the mystery thriller Decision to Leave, starring Park Hae-il and Chinese actress Tang Wei (Lust, Caution). Details of the film remain scarce, but the story is set to revolve around a detective who falls in love with a mysterious widow after she becomes the prime suspect in his latest murder investigation. Park has already won the Cannes Grand Prix (2004 for Oldboy) and the Jury Prize (2009 for Thirst), but he has yet to take home the grand prize.
Swedish Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square) returns to the Cannes competition with his latest social satire Triangle of Sadness. Two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Rosetta, L’enfant) with Tori and Lokita are also back in the competition. Belgian director Lukas Dhont, who broke through with transgender drama Girl (2018), will make his Cannes competition debut with Close.
Acclaimed American director Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women) will present Showing Up in the Cannes competition alongside Italian director Mario Martone’s Nostalgia and Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu’s RMN.
Other competition titles include Frere et Soeur by director Arnaud Desplechin, Leila’s Brothers by Saeed Roustaee, Tarik Saleh’s Boy From Heaven, Les Amandiers by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Tchaïkovski’s Wife by Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov.
CANNES PREMIERE FOR DAVID BOWIE, JERRY LEE LEWIS DOCUMENTARY
Frémaux confirmed 47 films in this year’s Official Selection, including Midnight Screening slots for Jung-Jae Lee’s Hunt, French director Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Makes You Cough and Brett Morgen’s David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream.
Ethan Coen’s Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, a documentary about the legendary rock ‘n’ roll star and the director’s first solo film without brother Joel, will screen at Cannes 2022 alongside Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes and The Natural History of Destruction by director Sergei Loznitsa (Dombass) from Ukraine.
Irma Vep by Olivier Assayas, Novembre by Cédric Jimenez, Nightfall by Marco Bellocchio, Dodo by Panos H. Kourtras and Masquerade by Nicolas Bedos also made the 2022 edit an out-of-competition sidebar in the Cannes Premieres section. Franco-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb, a two-time Palme d’Or nominee, who returns with Nos Frangins, is also featured in the Cannes red carpet premieres section.
UN CERTAIN REARD WITH RILEY KEOUGH’S DIRECTORY DEBUT BEAST.
First-time filmmakers making their Cannes debuts this year include Chie Hayakawa with Plan 75, Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret with Lles Pires, Saim Sadiq with Joyland, Lola Quivoron with Rodeo, Maksim Nakaonechnyi with Butterfly Vision and Alexandru Belc with Metronome . all will be screened in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes.
American actress Riley Keough (Max Max: Fury Road) will debut her directorial debut, Beast, which she co-directed with Gina Gammell, in the sidebar this year.
Also in Un Certain Regard are Burning Days by Emin Alper, The Silent Twins by Polish director Agnieszka Smocynska, Domingo and the Midst by Ariel Escalante Meza, Kristoffer Borglis Sick of Myself, Davy Chou’s All the people I’ll never be, The Stranger by Thomas M. Wright, Godland by Hlynur Palmason and Corsage by director Marie Kreutzer.
GEORGE MILLER’S THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING COMPETS ELVIS, TOP GUN 2 IN CANNES
Out of competition, Three Thousand Years Of Longing by Mad Max director George Miller, starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, will have a major red carpet spot.
As previously announced, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis will have its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, starring Austin Butler as the King of Rock and Roll, Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley and Tom Hanks as music executive Colonel Tom Parker. Produced by Bazmark and The Jackal Group, Elvis will be released June 24th in North America and June 22nd in the rest of the world.
Top Gun: Maverick, the long-delayed sequel to the 1986 Tom Cruise action film, will also be screened as part of the Cannes 75th Anniversary edition, bowing on the Croisette on May 18. Both Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks will attend their respective premieres. Cannes has announced it will host a “special tribute to Tom Cruise and his career” at the Top Gun 2 screening. The much-anticipated Paramount and Skydance sequel has become something of a symbol of the upheaval inflicted on the film industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The release of Top Gun: Maverick has been delayed multiple times, from its originally scheduled bow of July 12, 2019 to June 26, 2020, then to December 23, 2022, to July 2, 2021, to November 19, 2021 and finally to to their current North American release on May 27th this year, following the international launch earlier this week.
Both Elvis and Top Gun 2 are major successes for Cannes, which is framing this year’s festival as a celebratory return to cinema after two years of COVID restrictions and cinema closures amid lockdowns. The festival is also keen to re-establish its position as the go-to place for tentpole and awards-season releases, having lost ground over the past two years in Venice, which has hosted Oscar winners such as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.
Lescure, who will step down as Cannes President after this year’s event to be replaced by Iris Knobloch as Cannes’ first-ever female President, noted how relevant the austere festival remains. He pointed to Cannes’ recent agreement with social media giant TikTok to be an official partner this year, an alliance that is likely to brush up on both organizations’ brands.
“It would be crazy to ignore this means of communication,” Lescure remarked.
Cannes aims to tap into TikTok’s billion-dollar user base by providing exclusive backstage content as well as talent interviews and, yes, red carpet glamour. For TikTok, Cannes offers a reputation boost as the platform seeks to position itself as a content creator.
Frémaux said the jury for this year’s Cannes competition will be confirmed in the coming days. He added that Cannes will be adding a handful of additional films to its official selection next week.
Here is the full official program of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, which will take place from May 17th to 28th.
OPENING NIGHT MOVIE (NOT COMPETITION)
Z by Michel Hazanavicius
COMPETITION
Armageddon Time by James Gray
Boy from Heaven by Tarik Saleh
Broker by Kore-Eda Hirokazu
Near Luke Dhont
Crimes of the Future by David Cronenberg
Decision to leave Park Chan-Wook
Eo by Jerzy Skolimowski
Frere et Soeur by Arnaud Desplechin
Sacred Spider by Ali Abbasi
Leila’s Brothers by Saeed Roustaee
Les Amandiers by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Nostalgia by Mario Martone
Appearance of Kelly Reichardt
Stars at Noon by Claire Denis
Tchaikovsky’s Wife by Kirill Serebrennikov
Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Ostlund
Tori and Lokita by Jean-Pierre and Luc Daradenne
RMN by Cristian Mungiu
UNSAFE ATTENTION
All the People I’ll Never Be by Davy Chou
Beast by Riley Koeugh and Gina Gammell
Burning Days by Emin Alper
Butterfly Vision by Maksim Nakonechnyi
Corsage by Marie Kreutzer
Domingo and the middle of Ariel Escalante Meza
Godland by Hlynur Palmason
Joyland by Saim Sadiq
Les Pires by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret
Metronome by Alexandru Belc
Plan 75 by Hayakawa Chie
Rodeo by Lola Quivoron
Sick of Myself by Kristoffer Borgli
The Silent Twins by Agnieszka Smocynska
The Stranger by Thomas M. Wright
SPECIAL SHOWS
Anything That Breathes by Shaunak Sen
Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind by Ethan Coen
The Natural History of Destruction by Sergei Loznitsa
CANNES PREMIERE
Dodo by Panos H. Koutras
Irma Vep by Olivier Assayas
Twilight by Marco Bellocchio
Nos Frangins by Rachid Bouchareb
EXCEPT COMPETITION
Elvis by Baz Luhrmann
Masquerade by Nicolas Bedos
November by Cedric Jimenez
Three Thousand Years of Longing by George Miller
Top Gun: Maverick by Joseph Kosinski
midnight screenings
Hunting by Lee Jung-Jae
Moonage Daydream by Brett Morgen
Smoking makes you cough by Quentin Dupieux