Harrison Ford, De Niro, Johnny Depp… 21 films, records for female directors, Cannes Film Festival rolls out the red carpet this Tuesday

The 7th production of this arthouse, caught up in the strike of film artists that has halted filming in the United States, will be directed to the Palais des Festivals from May 16 to 27.

Because, a year after creating an event with “Elvis” and “Top Gun: Maverick”, Cannes, where a hundred films will be shown in all places, confirms its idyll with Hollywood.

Movie stars like Harrison Ford will climb the ladder: at the age of 80, the actor gets the costume of the archaeologist Indiana Jones for the 5th installment of the saga imagined by Georges Lucas and brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg.

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Brie Larson… on the red carpet

Coming from one of the biggest American studios, Warner, the new president of the festival, Iris Knobloch, will have the opportunity to greet many other Hollywood stars.

Among them: Martin Scorsese, who came to present his latest film with his favorite actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor Michael Douglas (“Wall Street”, “Basic Instinct”) who will receive the Palme d’or honor, or Pedro The very famous Pascal, the hero of the series “The Last of Us”, who shares with Ethan Hawke the poster of gay romance and western sauce, an unrecognizable short film by Pedro Almodovar.

The new generation has not been forgotten: Brie Larson, aka “Captain Marvel”, joins the Palme d’Or jury at the age of 33, along with Paul Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine”, “The Fabelmans”), and pop star The The Weeknd will light up the red carpet for his ‘The Idol’ series, starring Lily-Rose Depp.

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21 movies in progress

Major studios have responded to the call of the Côte d’Azur, a platform including the presence of Apple, which will therefore release its films, like that of Scorsese, first in cinemas. The Netflix giant continues to ignore this rule, which is strictly enforced in competitions.

A total of 21 films are in the running to inherit the 2022 Palme d’Or, “Without Filter”. Its director, Ruben Östlund of Sweden, is the chairman of the jury this year.

Filmmakers such as the Italian Nanni Moretti, the Turkish Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Japanese Hirokazu Kore-Eda or the German Wim Wenders are looking for a second Palme, while at the age of 86, the Englishman Ken Loach is trying to score a historic hat-trick.

Record the number of seven directors

In a male-dominated film industry whose efforts are still insufficient to achieve equality, the official competition selected a record number of seven female directors.

The latter remains very much in the minority, but the arrival of these artists, who are younger than their male counterparts, contributes to the renewal of the festival and sends a signal to the entire industry.

Just like Ramata-Toulaye Sy, the 36-year-old Franco-Senegal director, stood out in the competition for the Palme d’Or with his very first film, “Banel et Adama”.

The protagonists of this update, filmmakers Julia Ducournau (Palme d’or in 2021 with “Titane”) and Audrey Diwan (Lion d’Or the same year with “L’Evénement”) join the jury of the official competition and that of the Critics. ‘Wiki.

Johnny Depp in “Jeanne du Barry” directed by Maïwenn

As for the opening film, “Jeanne du Barry”, it promises not to leave anyone indifferent.

Its director, Maïwenn, is the one complained about by journalist Edwy Plenel, who allegedly attacked her in a restaurant.

He puts himself there as the favorite of King Louis XV, played by Johnny Depp, the star of “Pirate of the Caribbean”, of course on the American sets since accusations of domestic violence and then mutual accusations of defamation with his ex-wife Amber Heard.

At the end of the highly publicized court soap show, and unfairly announcing the possible violence, Depp tried to return through Cannes, the evening of the opening ceremony, May 16.

The next day, the presentation in the competition of the film “The Return” by Catherine Corsini could also make waves: its public funding was withdrawn for not announcing, as the law provides, the filming of an explicit but simulated sexual scene, involving an actor under the age of 16 .