Between the Annettes, Benedettas, and French Dispatches of the world, Cannes is also home to some surprises. Screening out of competition, and at Critics Week, ACID, and Director’s Fortnight, many of these hidden gems may not make many festival curtain raisers, but these are the surprises seen on late night impulses that make the lineup more interesting.
74th Festival de Cannes: Here are the Films of the Official Selection
Now, we may not be able to tell you now the title of every surprise out of nowhere, every stellar debut or crown jewel from an under-sung filmmaker that will premiere, but we can have our guesses. These ten films, a few which we have seen already (but which? We cannot yet say) show promise among what can sound like an overwhelming number.
10.
The debut feature from Portrait of a Lady on Fire breakout actress Luàna Bajrami, The Hill Where Lionesses Roar is a solar wander through the young filmmaker’s native Kosovo. The sorority between friends, nature as a character, and the screaming rebellion of teenage girls bored in their lives make up a scenic love letter to a homeland the director wonders about. She is set to act, write, and direct a film that’ll be visually stunning at the least.
9.
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s Anaïs Demoustier-starring short film Pauline Enslaved is already a vision, and the pair return to work together again with Anaïs in Love, a restless love triangle that pulls in a couple played by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (also in La Fracture this year) and Denis Podalydès. Messy, desire entangles among gorgeous scenery to create the kind of easy romance that’s best served screening with a glass of wine.
8.
The first Haitian film to screen at Cannes in the official selection, actress-director-musician multi hyphenate Gessica Geneus is the mind behind Freda. Centered around working class women, and an overlooked place in Haitian society, precarious daily life here is centered around the livelihood of a small street food shop.
7.
Initially pitched at the festival back in 2019, Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Clara Sola revolves around a sheltered woman’s sexual awakening, and the ripples that spread through her family. Mesén’s previous short films deal with themes of youth, first desires, and queerness, and early reactions heavily praise dancer Wendy Chinchilla Araya’s feral lead performance of her feature.
6.
With two ties to films that Amazon made events while the pandemic, Women Do Cry is a Queer Palme eligible omnibus drifting through multiple stories in Bulgaria as the country is shaken by anti-gender equality protests. Starring Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm Oscar-nominated breakout maria Bakalova, and from the creators of Cat in the Wall, one of the SXSW cancelled premieres to screen through Amazon, its poised as a feminist sleeper hit of the festival.
5.
The second of the three directing trio behind 2014’s Camera d’Or winning Party Girl to release a solo feature, Samuel Theis is behind Softie, set in the same northern French town of Forbach where former co-director Claire Burger’s Real Love (a favorite of ours) takes place. The film follows a young boy and his friendship with a teacher, and deals with sensitive masculinity, and the judgements passed for nonconformity.
4.
Tempestad filmmaker Tatiana Huezo returns with the story of young girls in a town marked by violence. Distantly disguised by their boyish looks, they hide underground to escape the threat of men who wish to take them away. Prayers for the Stolen is about what it means to be women, particularly in a world where violence is heavily gendered, and determines the paths of lives.
3.
Two years ago, we had Beanpole turning a surprise as one of the best films to premiere at Cannes in the modern era. Kira Kovalenko’s sophomore feature is another bleak, sensitive Russian drama centering on the life of a young woman, here struggling to break free from her over controlling father. Beanpole director Kantemir Balagov calls Unclenching the Fists the film of the century, and it looks to fit well with his powerful films.
2.
Visual artist Anaïs Volpé’s multimedia feature Heis (chronicles) seem to be a bit of a cult classic among those I follow on Letterboxd, but without having seen it, her new film Entre les vagues (The Braves) looks fantastic. Starring Deborah Lukumuena (who is fantastic in Divines, and is another Cannes film this year, Constance Meyer’s Robust) and Souheila Yacoub (Les Sauvages) as two inseparable friends pursuing careers as stage actresses, it looks to be one of the more interesting lighter women-led films screening.
1.
Brazilian Anita Rocha da Silveira first caught our eye with 2015’s Kill Me Please, a sapphic teenage dystopia where the world is out to kill. Her coming of age genre film skills are back on show with Medusa, a twisty, music-heavy adaptation of the Athena and Medusa myth. The film deals with themes of controlling Christianity, and beauty standards, taking a twist on the story of Medusa as a woman made ugly by gods, in a world not far from our own where looks and perfection are power. It looks to be a challenging, provocative dark horror of the monstrous feminine, a bolder, feminist midnight movie that’ll find its fanbase.
