New Discoveries & Innovative Cinema at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival
by Alex Billington
May 15, 2024
Another year, another Cannes Film Festival. The 77th Festival International du Film de Cannes has begun this week in the South of France in the lovely beach city of Cannes on the Mediterranean coast. We’re back again, along with thousands (and thousands) of film critics, journalists, cinephiles, industry members, filmmakers, students, and more. Cannes remains the BIGGEST film festival in the world, not only with the most prestigious line-up and the most attendees. It’s always an exciting time, just to be here in the midst of it all. In the weeks leading up to Cannes, it’s particularity challenging to gauge whether everyone is actually excited about coming back, or if there’s some other controversy or snag that will disrupt the festival… With its pandemic years now in the rear-view, Cannes is powering forward with another full-on, fireworks-filled two week celebration of the power of cinema. Artistic director Thierry Frémaux also stated during the announcement of the official selection that due to the strikes in Hollywood last year, there are not as many American films, but there are plenty of other new discoveries and surprises ready to shine on the big screen.
Every year when I return to Cannes (or Venice or Sundance) I always wonder, is it still possible to innovate anymore in cinema? With limitations on production, budgetary problems, changes in the industry, many major crises around the world, can cinema still remain relevant and reinvent what visual art can be? Yes, of course! Cannes is the place to be in May every year because they still have the power to program and screen some of the best films that really are innovative & exhilarating. Of course, they’re showing George Miller’s Furiosa and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, two new creations made by Cannes veterans already well known as masterminds of cinema. Yet here they are, returning again decades later to the Croisette, still challenging cinema as we know it with movies that are visually stunning and hard to pull off. It’s important to be in Cannes because it’s the right place to be to get a first look at all this fresh new cinema. Maybe that small film from India might be the most innovative creation? Maybe some other film from no one expected to matter will blow us all away? Better to be here now and find out before any of the marketing kicks in, to go in with an open mind and hope Cannes has brought some truly great filmmakers from around the world.
There’s an interesting quote in a very dour Cannes postmortem article published by Roger Ebert in 2010. He ends his wrap-up saying: “I’ve been to 35 festivals in Cannes. I’ll tell you the truth. I doubt if there will even be a Cannes Film Festival in another 35 years. If there is, it will have little to do with the kinds of films and audiences we grew up treasuring. More and more, I’m feeling it’s goodbye to all that.” Well, first things first, it’s 14 years later and Cannes is still going strong. However, he does bring up a good point – is Cannes moving in a good direction, are they still playing these kind of films that “we grew up treasuring”? Or have they drifted off course? Everyone seems to have a different answer. One thing is for sure – there’s absolutely way too much French control over Cannes these days, with the country’s films dominating the line-up but also everything else about how the festival runs (e.g. no Netflix films because of archaic, oppressive laws about films playing in cinemas in France). However, I do believe that Cannes does still make its mark by having first dibs on incredible movies and giving them a chance to reach audiences by showing them to the huge number of attendees these two weeks. I do hope they don’t drift too far off course in the next decade…
In terms of my most anticipated films at Cannes 2024, aside from Furiosa and Megalopolis, there’s a handful of others I cannot wait to watch. I have high hopes for the two big horror films in the competition line-up: David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds (teaser trailer here) and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. I’m always looking forward to animation in Cannes, including Claude Barras’s Sauvages, Yôko Kuno & Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Ghost Cat Anzu (teaser trailer here), Michel Hazanavicius’ The Most Precious of Cargoes, and Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow. As a big fan of her 2017 film I Am Not a Witch, I’m excited to watch Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. I’ve also got a really good feeling about all of these films playing at the festival this year: Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Zhangke Jia’s Caught by the Tides, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (teaser trailer here), Sean Baker’s Anora, and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope (which was already picked up by A24). The rest we’ll have to wait and see and find out if they’re any good (or not).
I invite you to please follow along as I make my way from screening to screening at #Cannes2024, watching films from all kinds of different countries, catching up with friends and colleagues. And please make sure to follow updates, read reviews, and keep an eye on all of the film critics / journalists in Cannes this year. One thing I love about this festival is that it brings us all together! We fly in to be here at the same time. There’s different voices, different takes, different kinds of coverage, different reviews, always more to read, always more to consider. As strange as it is to say this out loud, I do love arguing about films here! Sometimes it’s fun to have a healthy debate, sometimes it’s fun to disagree about a new film, sometime it’s interesting to think about what someone else saw in a film, and how their interpretation is different (or similar). Festivals should always be about this kind of intriguing discussion, encouraging a vivacious discourse, where any/all voices can participate in the conversation about cinema. Thankfully the Cannes Film Festival is a beautiful place where conversations happen on every street, in bars, in restaurants, in apartments, and yes even in queues for the next screening. I’m ready to start watching, dedicating myself fully to two full weeks of films.
You can follow all of my Cannes 2024 coverage and reviews right here and on my Letterboxd with ratings and thoughts posted daily. I’m also still on Twitter @firstshowing. The festival begins on May 14th and runs until May 25th, and I’ll be watching as much as I can while the films are still playing on the screens in town.
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