Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" will premiere on the French Riviera this year, alongside new releases from Cannes Film Festival favourites Jacques Audiard, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sean Baker and Karim Aïnouz. Those movies will all be scrutinised by jury president Greta Gerwig. FRANCE 24's Olivia Salazar-Winspear takes us through the line-up and flags up two major red carpet events: "Furiosa", the fifth instalment of the Mad Max films and "Horizon: An American Saga", Kevin Costner's passion project.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Now here in France, the organisers of the Cannes Film Festival have just announced which films will be competing for the top prize, the Palme d'Or this year.
00:08 France 24's Olivia Salazar-Winspear is here with more. You've been following the news for us, tell us what you know.
00:13 Okay, well there are a few familiar faces in the competition this year.
00:17 We're starting with French director Jacques Audier, he's got a film called Emilia Perez,
00:21 Selena Gomez is in that one, he's already won the Palme d'Or, so who knows, could be another one for him.
00:26 Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, he's back at Cannes with a biopic of Eduard Limonov,
00:32 the Russian writer and dissident politician who will be played by Ben Whishaw.
00:36 Of course, Serebrennikov himself is not exactly a welcome artist in Putin's Russia, so he knows what he's talking about there.
00:41 Karim Aynuz returns to his native Brazil for a film, Motel Destino, that's after last year's period drama Firebrand, starring Alicia Vikander,
00:51 that was about Henry VIII's final wife, Catherine Parr.
00:54 And American director Sean Baker is back after the success of Red Rocket, he's got a film called Anora.
01:00 Paul Schrader, of course, famous screenwriter, director too, has a film called O Canada, starring Richard Gere and Uma Thurman.
01:08 And speaking of American productions, director of the Cannes Film Festival Thierry Fremont flagged up the strikes in Hollywood last year,
01:15 which has actually slowed down quite a few films, means they weren't ready in time for the festival.
01:21 One film that is ready is Francis Ford Coppola's latest release, that's called Megalopolis,
01:27 and it stars Adam Driver, Laurence Fishburne and Aubrey Plaza.
01:31 Now, Coppola is one of that select group of filmmakers who actually have won two Palme d'Ors, only nine people have done that.
01:38 He won one for The Conversation in 1974 and for Apocalypse Now in 1979, you might have heard of that one.
01:45 Canadian director David Cronenberg is also back at the film festival with his latest release,
01:51 as is Yorgos Lanthimos with his film Kinds of Kindness.
01:55 Now, of course, that stars Emma Stone, as is usual for him these days.
02:00 He directed her in Poor Things, which she won the Academy Award for just recently and the favourite in 2018.
02:07 So far, they've announced 19 films in the official competition.
02:12 They'll probably announce a few more in the coming days and weeks, that is quite common for them at the festival.
02:17 Four of them have been directed by women, it's always something that's flagged up, how many films were made by women.
02:23 I suspect another one will come along, directed by a woman.
02:27 But one high profile woman at the festival will be judging these films, of course,
02:32 that's the president of the jury this year, Greta Gerwig, hot on the heels of her success with the Barbie film last year, obviously.
02:39 Now, when it comes to prizes, one prize we already know about is the honorary Palme d'Or.
02:44 That will go to George Lucas of Star Wars fame for his career, his body of work, which is considerable, of course.
02:51 Plenty of treats out of competition as well, that's always the case at Cannes.
02:55 One is the very hotly anticipated Furiosa, that's the fifth instalment of George Miller's Mad Max series of films.
03:02 And we'll also get to see Kevin Costner's magnum opus, which is Horizon, an American saga.
03:08 That's a two-part western that's been many, many years in the making.
03:12 Apparently it's a passion project for Kevin Costner, it looks quite epic.
03:16 And do remember, of course, that it's in a month or so now, but we'll be bringing you all the latest coverage from the Cannes Film Festival live from the red carpet.