Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows to open the 71st… | Little White Lies

Festivals

Asghar Farhadi’s Every­body Knows to open the 71st Cannes Film Festival

04 Apr 2018

Words by Hannah Strong

Two people, a man and a woman, standing together in a city street. The man has a beard and the woman has long dark hair. They are both smiling.
Two people, a man and a woman, standing together in a city street. The man has a beard and the woman has long dark hair. They are both smiling.
Every­body Knows is set for the cov­et­ed open­ing slot of the fes­ti­val on 8 May.

With the 91st Cannes Film Fes­ti­val now lit­tle over a month away, the open­ing title grac­ing the French Riv­iera has been announced as Asghar Farhadi’s Every­body Knows. Star­ring Javier Bar­dem and Pene­lope Cruz, the psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller is Farhadi’s fol­low-up to 2016’s The Sales­man, which took home Best Screen­play and Best Actor at Cannes in 2016.

Filmed entire­ly in Span­ish despite Farha­di being unable to speak the lan­guage, Every­body Knows is only the sec­ond Span­ish lan­guage film ever to open the fes­ti­val, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Edu­ca­tion all the way back in 2004. It’s also the first title not direct­ed by a French, Amer­i­can, British or Aus­tralian film­mak­er to open Cannes since Fer­nan­do Meirelles’ Blind­ness back in 2008.

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Asghar is no stranger to the Croisette, hav­ing pre­miered The Sales­man in 2016 and The Past in 2013 – he even appeared dur­ing the festival’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny last year to heap praise on Cannes’ mem­o­rable atmos­phere. The rest of the Cannes Com­pe­ti­tion line-up is expect­ed to be announced at the fes­ti­val press con­fer­ence on April 12.

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