The 72nd Cannes International Film Festival is just two months away and while nothing has been confirmed yet, rumors and reports are flying thick and fast as to who will be storming the Croisette this year.
After losing Roma to Venice last year — following Cannes’ refusal to allow a Netflix-backed film to screen in its competition, Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux will be eager to reach some sort of deal with the streaming giant — if only to make sure he doesn’t lose out on hotly-anticipated Netflix titles, including Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (if it’s ready in time), Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat with Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman, and David Michod’s Shakespeare adaptation The King featuring Ben Mendelsohn, Timothee Chalamet and Joel Edgerton.
Venice has managed to outshine Cannes the past three years — 2018’s Lido lineup included Oscar winners The Favourite, Roma, First Man and A Star Is Born— and Fremaux will be pushing to reassert his position as the boss of the world’s number one film fest for this year’s event, which runs May 14-May 25.
As the festival goes about making its selections, Fremaux will this Saturday be in Los Angeles, where he’s scheduled to speak about the restoration being done on the Lumiere brothers’ films, at the HFPA Restoration Summit, presented by the Hollywood Film Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation and the Institut Lumiere — and that should give him an opportunity to check in on the status of some of the U.S. films under consideration.
Beyond Hollywood, Fremaux, alongside the programmers of the Directors’ Fortnight and Un Certain Regard sidebars, should have plenty of prime features to choose from, including the latest from Palme-winning directors Ken Loach, Abdellatif Kechiche, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and Hirokazu Kore-eda.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter