Anupama Chopra
Harrison Ford will be there. So will Johnny Depp. And Sunny Leone. In the coming week, the tiny French town of Cannes will once again, transform (for 12 days) into the world’s film capital.
Director Martin Scorsese returns to the festival after 37 years with Killers of the Flower Moon, about a series of murders in Oklahoma in the Twenties.
Pedro Almodovar will be there with his second English-language short film called Strange Way of Life and starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.
Other auteurs include Wes Anderson (Asteroid City), Todd Haynes (May December) and returning Palme d’Or winners Nuri Bilge Ceylan (About Dry Grasses), Ken Loach (The Old Oak), Wim Wenders (Perfect Days) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Monster).
And for the first time ever in the festival’s 76-year history, seven female filmmakers will compete for the Palme d’Or. This includes Alice Rohrwacher and Catherine Breillat.
Only four Indian films have made the official selection. Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy (starring Leone and Rahul Bhat) has a midnight screening and Kanu Behl's Agra is showing in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar. The short film Nehemich by Yudhajit Basu is part of La Cinef and was selected from among 2,000 films submitted by film schools around the world.
The short film Nehemich by Yudhajit Basu is part of La Cinef and was selected from among 2,000 films submitted by film schools around the world.
Legendary Manipuri director Aribam Syam Sharma’s Ishanou, restored by the Film Heritage Foundation, will also show as part of Cannes Classics.
Eighty-year-old Ford will also walk the red carpet as will 78-year-old Michael Douglas, who is being awarded an honorary Palme d’Or.