International Insider: Bonjour Cannes Film Fest, Au Revoir MIPTV; Southeast Asia Deep Dive; Believe In ‘Bluey’

Good afternoon Insiders, thanks for always sticking with us. Max Goldbart here talking you through a packed week in the global entertainment world. Read on, and sign up here.

Bonjour Cannes Film Fest

Here they come: Cannes head Thierry Frémaux delivered a strong selection of titles Wednesday that will make up the festival’s 77th edition, running May 14 to 25, as the eagerly-awaited Cannes presser took place and Deadline kept you well informed. One of them we already knew – Francis Ford Coppola’s much-discussed epic Megalopolis, which Mike Fleming revealed earlier this week. Other filmmakers set for competition slots include Ali Abbasi, who brings The Apprentice, a feature pic about the early life of Donald Trump. Andrea Arnold returns with Bird, starring Barry Keoghan, and Jacques Audiard’s latest, Emilia Perez, a musical with Selena Gomez will also debut on the Croisette. Elsewhere, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino returns with Parthenope. Poor Things filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos will launch Kinds of Kindness, his latest collab with Emma Stone. David Cronenberg returns with The Shrouds, and Paul Schrader will debut Oh Canada starring Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, and Richard Gere.

English-language presence: Notably, there’s a strong English-language and American presence in the main competition, with a whopping 10 English-language titles in contention. That’s more than half the Competition. Frémaux described the high number as a  “coincidence” in a short interview with Mel following the announcement. Amongst the familiar names, however, there were still some international discoveries to be found. Two relatively new female filmmakers, Agathe Riedinger and Payal Kapadia landed competition spots with their respective features All We Imagine as Light and Wild Diamond. There was also a strong showing from Chinese filmmakers, which Frémaux noted at yesterday’s presser as a welcome return for a country that has been less present on the international film stage of late. There are three Chinese filmmakers in the lineup and another from Hong Kong. There is also a first Somali film. And Saudi Arabia landed its first spot at Cannes with Norah, by Saudi director Tawfik