Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, one of the director’s typically-quirky and star-studded affairs, featuring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Tilda Swindon, Jason Schwartzman and many many more, will debut in competition in Cannes.
“It’s a Wes Anderson film, full stop,” said Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux, making the announcement. The Focus Features film, which will bow on limited release June 16, was expected to bow on the Croisette.
In competition, Austrian director Jessica Hausner, whose sci-fi feature Little Joe screened in competition in 2019, returns with Club Zero. Cult British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer makes his Cannes competition debut with his latest, Zone of Interest.
Legendary Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki returns to Cannes, with Dead Leaves, his first film in six years.
Oscar-winner Steve McQueen will return to Cannes with his new film, Occupied City, a look at the director’s adopted home in Amsterdam.
The documentary, which will screen out of competition, looks at the Dutch city during the time of Nazi occupation during World War II, between the years 1940 and 1945. McQueen brought his film debut, Hunger, to Cannes in 2008.
Another high-profile non-competition red carpet will be for The Idol, from Sam Levinson, a TV series for HBO featuring Lily-Rose Depp and Canadian pop star The Weeknd, who also co-created the show.
Another Cannes favorite, German veteran Wim Wenders, will also screen his latest non-fiction effort on the Croisette, bringing the documentary Anselm, a portrait of German painter Anselm Kiefer, to the festival’s 76th edition.
Japanese legend Taskeshi Kitano also scored an out-of-competition slot, and will bring his latest, Kubi, to Cannes this year. As did Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho, whose Pictures of Ghosts will unspool out of competition.
New Cannes festival presidentIris Knobloch and Frémaux are unveiling the competition, Un Certain Regard and out-of-competition titles for Cannes’ 2023 edition at a press conference in Paris. You can follow the event live below.
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After a long introduction, Frémaux started to rattle off the Un Certain Regard titles, which will include The Delinquents from director Rodrigo Moreno, debut features How to Have Sex from U.K. filmmaker Molly Walker and Goodbye Julia from director Mohamed Kordofani, and The Buriti Flower by directors João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora.
Other Un Certain Regard titles include Monia Chokri’s Simple Comme Sylvain, Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama The New Boy, produced by, and co-starring, Cate Blanchett, Rosalie from director Stéphanie Di Giusto, and Antony Chen’s The Breaking Ice.
Asmae El Moudir brings her Moroccan feature The Mother of All Lies to Un Certain Regard. Other highlights include Felipe Galvez’s The Settlers, and The Omen, the directorial debut from director Baloji Tshiani.
Cannes has already announced two major Hollywood productions that will premiere on the Croisette: James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth entry in the archaeologist adventure franchise starring Harrison Ford; and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an Apple Originals drama, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. Last year, the blow-out premieres of Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis helped Cannes recaptured its red carpet panache and the festival will be hoping this year’s star-studded roll-outs will have a similar impact.
Frémaux said he wanted to put Killers of the Flower Moon in competition but that Scorcese turned him down.
Cannes regular Pedro Almodóvar will also return to the festival red carpet for the world premiere of his LGBTQ Western Strange Way of Life, an English-language short starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.
Jeanne du Barry, a French period drama directed by, and starring, Polisse and DNA director Mäiwenn, will open the 2023 festival on May 16. Mäiwenn plays Jeanne Vaubernier, a working-class woman who became the last official courtesan of French King Louis XV, played by Johnny Depp.
The selection is certain to raise a few eyebrows, given Depp’s recent, very public, legal spat with ex-wife Amber Heard. Mäiwenn is also in the spotlight, following the release of a police report that she is being sued by a French journalist for assault. Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of online investigative newspaper Mediapart, claims he was having dinner at a restaurant in Paris when the director attacked him: grabbing him violently by the hair and spitting in his face.
Two-time Cannes Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Triangle of Sadness) will head up this year’s Cannes competition jury. The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27.
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