The U.K. & Ireland Land 9 Films for the 77th Cannes Film Festival Lineup, 5 in Competition
Most of Hollywood doesn't really tune into Awards season until the end of the summer when the back-to-back film festivals start rolling out the big contenders in Venice and Toronto, followed by London and then American theatrical releases. But for the rest of the world, the chase for recognition starts in France in the springtime at the Cannes Film Festival. The second oldest film festival in Europe and one of the most respected competitions, the "Festival de Cannes" was founded in 1946 as a way to help the country bounce back from its war-torn bankruptcy. With the Berlin Film Festival's February dates currently occurring before the yearly Oscars, relegating it (along with Sundance) to a sort of "pre-party" for the coming year, Cannes is treated as the first preview for those hopefuls who are planning to make a run for gold come fall.
Cannes prides itself on being invite-only and super strict about it, so those who get in tend to crow about it. For 2024, the 77th iteration of the festival has packed a wallop of a lineup, including the highly anticipated musical Emilia Perez starring Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) and Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building), Francis Ford Coppola's long-awaited Megalopolis remake with Adam Driver (Star Wars) and British actor Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones), and David Cronenberg's The Shrouds which originally starred Vincent Cassel (Liasion), Guy Pearce (A Spy Among Friends), and Léa Seydoux (No Time to Die), but the latter dropped out of the film to star in The Second Act, which wound up as the festival's opener.
However, the British and Irish contingents did not do too shabbily. BBC Films had four productions selected, one of which will screen in competition. Bird, from writer-director Andrea Arnold, stars Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) as an absent dad and newcomer Franz Rogowski as the titular Bird. Also in competition, there's Element Pictures teaming up with Disney's Searchlight for Yorgos Lanthimos' next film with Emma Stone, Kinds Of Kindness. Working Title teamed up with Universal for the horror film The Substance by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat. Brazilian thriller Motel Destino comes from the Aussie-U.K. company Bruhaha Entertainment. And the Irish outfit Tailored Films is partly responsible for the very controversial The Apprentice, Cannes' big headliner film, which is about exactly who you think it is, played by Sebastian Stan, of all people.
