Xavier Dolan, Terrence Malick headline 72nd… | Little White Lies

Festivals

Xavier Dolan, Ter­rence Mal­ick head­line 72nd Cannes Film Festival

18 Apr 2019

Words by Adam Woodward

A young man with blonde hair wearing a colourful patterned top, looking pensive and serious.
A young man with blonde hair wearing a colourful patterned top, looking pensive and serious.
This year’s Offi­cial Selec­tion fea­tures new works from Jim Jar­musch, Bong Joon-ho and Jes­si­ca Hausner.

After last year’s decid­ed­ly un-star­ry (but still very strong) line-up, the stars will be out in full force when the 72nd Cannes Film Fes­ti­val gets under­way on 14 May.

This morn­ing Pres­i­dent Pierre Les­cure and Gen­er­al Del­e­gate Thier­ry Fré­maux announced the 2019 Offi­cial Selec­tion in Paris. Among the big names set to unveil new works on the Côte d’Azur next month are Jim Jar­musch, dou­ble Palme d’Or win­ner Ken Loach and some­time Cannes gold­en boy Xavier Dolan, who’ll be hop­ing to get his hands on the top prize for the first time.

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In 2018, 82 woman marched up the red car­pet in protest against the lack of gen­der equal­i­ty at Cannes and oth­er major film fes­ti­vals, prompt­ing many to sign the 5050×2020 pledge. There are no few­er than 13 female film­mak­ers across the Offi­cial Selec­tion at this year’s Cannes, but only four will com­pete for the Palme d’Or – a slight uptake on pre­vi­ous edi­tions but still some way off parity.

There are a few notable omis­sions, with Quentin Taran­ti­no miss­ing out on a com­pe­ti­tion slot despite his Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood report­ed­ly being ready. There’s no room for Gre­ta Ger­wig either, whose Lit­tle Women was also rumoured to be in con­tention, or James Gray’s Ad Astra, which is still unfin­ished at the time of writing.

Here is the Offi­cial Selec­tion in full…

The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jar­musch) – Open­ing Film
Par­a­site (Bong Joon-ho)
Glo­ry and Glo­ria (Pedro Almod­ó­var)
The Trai­tor (Mar­co Bel­loc­chio)
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)
Matthias & Maxime (Xavier Dolan)
Roubaix, a Light (Arnaud Desplechin)
Atlan­tique (Mati Diop)
Les Mis­érables (Ladj Ly)
A Hid­den Life (Ter­rence Mal­ick)
Lit­tle Joe (Jes­si­ca Haus­ner)
Sor­ry We Missed You (Ken Loach)
Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dar­d­enne)
Nighthawk (Kle­ber Men­donça Fil­ho)
The Whistlers (Cor­neliu Porum­boiu)
Frankie (Ira Sachs)
Por­trait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sci­amma)
It Must Be Heav­en (Elia Suleiman)
Sibyl (Jus­tine Triet)

The Best Years of a Life (Claude Lelouch)
Rock­et Man (Dex­ter Fletch­er)
To Old to Die Young (Nico­las Wind­ing Refn)
Diego Maradona (Asif Kapa­dia)
La Belle Époque (Nico­las Bedos)

Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)
The Climb (Michael Covi­no)
A Brother’s Love (Monia Chokri)
The Swal­lows of Kab­ul (Zabou Bre­it­man, Eléa Gobé Mével­lec)
Invis­i­ble Life (Karim Aïnouz)
A Sun That Nev­er Sets (Olivi­er Laxe)
Cham­ber 212 (Christophe Hon­oré)
Port Author­i­ty (Danielle Lesso­vitz)
Papicha (Mou­nia Med­dour)
Adam (Maryam Touzani)
Zhuo Ren Mi Mi (Midi Z)
Lib­erté (Albert Ser­ra)
Bull (Annie Sil­ver­stein)
Sum­mer of Chang­sha (Zu Feng)
Evge (Nari­man Aliev)
Que Sea Ley (Juan Solanas)
Bean­pole (Kan­temir Balagov)

Share (Pip­pa Bian­co)
Fam­i­ly Romace, LLC (Wern­er Her­zog)
Tom­ma­so (Abel Ferrara)

The Gang­ster, The Cop, The Dev­il (Lee Won-Tae)

We’ll be report­ing live from the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val from 14 – 25 May. Fol­low us on Twit­ter for all the lat­est updates.

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