Cannes 2024: What’s In The Mix? (Part 2)

Roll up, roll up for part two of our Cannes preview, this time with a focus on international, mainly non-English language fare. If you didn’t catch Andreas’ English-language focused part one, check it out here.

As the fest basks in the warm glow of the Oscar gongs for 2023 Palme d’Or Anatomy Of A Fall and Grand Jury Prize winner The Zone of Interest, delegate general Thierry Frémaux and his team are furiously tying up the 2024 Official Selection.

With less than four weeks to go until the bulk of the 77th edition is revealed at the press conference in Paris on April 11, we’ve rounded up a host of the titles ready and in the running for a splash in either Official Selection or the main parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.

A number of Cannes habitués are out of the frame this year, including Pedro Almodóvar, who is in production on Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton picture The Room Next Door, and Ruben Östlund, who is in development on airplane disaster movie The Entertainment System Is Down.

Will this leave space for Cannes first-timers, both established and emerging? Below are our updates.

Europe

Hotly tipped French movies referenced in part one of our preview included Audrey Diwan’s reimagining of Emmanuelle, which has yet to decide between Cannes or Venice; François Ozon’s 24th feature When Fall Is Coming, Leos Carax’s medium-length work It’s Not Me, Nathalie Merlant’s The Balconettes, Arnaud Desplechin’s Filmlovers! and Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard’s intriguing crime-musical Emilia Perez, starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez.

Additional French titles by established directors we hear are ready for a potential Cannes splash include Patricia Mazuy’s Les Prisonnières, starring Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi as two women who bond while visiting their husbands in prison; Christophe Honoré Marcello Mio in which Chiara Mastroianni takes on the ghost of her father Marcello Mastroianni, with support from mother Catherine Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini and Melvil Poupaud; Emmanuel Mouret’s relationship drama Three Friends, with Camille Cottin, India Hair and Vincent Macaigne; Alain Guiraudie’s Miséricorde; Robert Guedignan’s La Pie Voleuse;