Cannes Goes Back to the Future With Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes in Competition

“Cannes is going back to the future of cinema,” said Iris Knobloch, the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling the lineup for the 2023 event on Thursday. And looking at this year’s selection, it’s hard to argue with her.

The 76th Cannes International Film Festival looks like an all-killer, no-filler program, with some of the biggest names in international cinema, many of whom got their start on the Croisette, returning to that famed red carpet. The 2023 competition lineup includes new films from Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. In addition, Cannes has packed its out-of-competition screenings with blockbusters, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as a new documentary from Oscar winner Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).

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Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, one of the director’s typically quirky and star-studded affairs, featuring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and many more, will debut in competition at Cannes.

“It’s a Wes Anderson film, full stop,” said Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux in making the announcement. The Focus Features film, which will bow in limited release on June 16, was expected to screen on the Croisette.

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, a Palme d’Or winner in 2018 for Shoplifters and a consummate Cannes regular, is back in the Cannes competition with Monster. Though no story details have yet been disclosed, it is known to star Ando Sakura (Shoplifters) and was scored by the late, great musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away in March.

Two-time Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach is back at Cannes with The Old Oak, another socially relevant drama from the English master, focused on the last remaining pub in a small English village where local people are leaving because the mines have closed. But with houses being cheap and available, the spot becomes an ideal location for Syrian refugees.

Another former Palme d’Or winner, Nanni Moretti (2001’s The Son’s Room), returns to the Croisette with Il Sol Dell’Avvenire, a Rome-set feature set partly in the 1950s as well as the worlds of cinema and the circus. It is 45 years since Moretti’s Cannes debut with Ecce Bombo in 1978. Another Italian Cannes regular, Marco Bellocchio (The Traitor, Vincere), will be back in competition with Rapito.

Among the veterans this year, we also have legendary Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, who returns to Cannes with Dead Leaves, his first film in six years, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a 2014 Palme d’Or winner for Winter Sleep, who comes back with About Dry Grasses, the story of a young teacher who hopes to get a job in Istanbul after mandatory duty in a small village. And Wim Wenders, the Palme winner for Paris, Texas in 1984, returns to competition with Perfect Days. The German director will also screen his latest nonfiction effort on the Croisette, bringing the documentary Anselm, a portrait of German painter Anselm Kiefer, to an out-of-competition slot.

Todd Haynes’ May December starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton will also premiere in competition. The story follows a married couple who buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about a public scandal in their past.

Also in competition, Austrian director Jessica Hausner, whose sci-fi feature Little Joe screened in competition in 2019, returns with Club Zero. She is one of just six female directors in competition (against 13 male helmers). The others include Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, whose Tuscany-set drama La Chimera stars Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Alba Rohrwacher and Vincenzo Nemolato; French filmmaker Justine Triet, in competition with the thriller Anatomy of a Fall, featuring Toni Erdmann star Sandra Hüller; her compatriot Catherine Breillat with L’été dernier starring Léa Drucker (Close); Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) with Four Daughters; and Senegalese-French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy, whose debut feature, Banel & Adama, will premiere in competition this year. Five female directors in competition is an all-time record for Cannes, but it is still a long way from gender parity.

Also in the running for the 2023 Palme d’Or are cult British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin), making his Cannes competition debut with his latest, Zone of Interest; Vietnam-born French director Tran Anh Hung with La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, a 19th century period drama starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel; Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing with Jeunesse; and Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, whose competition entry, Firebrand, is billed as a “history horror story” following the marriage of Queen Catherine Parr and King Henry VIII.

Oscar-winner Steve McQueen will return to Cannes with his new film, Occupied City, a look at the director’s adopted home in Amsterdam.

The documentary, which will screen out of competition, looks at the Dutch city during the time of Nazi occupation during World War II, between the years 1940 and 1945. McQueen brought his film debut, Hunger, to Cannes in 2008.

Another high-profile non-competition red carpet will be for The Idol, from Sam Levinson, a TV series for HBO featuring Lily-Rose Depp and Canadian pop star The Weeknd, who also co-created the show.

Japanese legend Takeshi Kitano also scored an out-of-competition slot and will bring his latest, Kubi, to Cannes this year. This may be the last feature from the comedian, auteur, actor and all-around industry legend. The movie is said to be a period samurai action drama based on Kitano’s 2019 novel of the same title. Scoring the Japanese icon’s appearance is something of a coup for Cannes, as Kitano has tended to be loyal to the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Golden Lion in 1997 for his now-classic crime drama Hanabi.

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho, who screened his last two features, Bacurau (2019) and Aquarius (2016), in Cannes, will be back with Pictures of Ghosts, unspooling out of competition. And Korean genre specialist Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil, The Tale of Two Sisters) also secured a Cannes out-of-competition slot for his new feature, Cobweb.

Knobloch and Frémaux unveiled the competition, Un Certain Regard and out-of-competition titles for Cannes’ 2023 edition at a press conference in Paris on Thursday.

After a long introduction, Frémaux started to rattle off the Un Certain Regard titles, which will include The Delinquents from director Rodrigo Moreno, debut features How to Have Sex from U.K. filmmaker Molly Walker and Goodbye Julia from director Mohamed Kordofani, and The Buriti Flower by directors João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora.

Other Un Certain Regard titles include Monia Chokri’s Simple Comme Sylvain; Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama The New Boy, produced by, and co-starring, Cate Blanchett; Rosalie from director Stéphanie Di Giusto; and Antony Chen’s The Breaking Ice.

Asmae El Moudir also brings her Moroccan feature The Mother of All Lies to Un Certain Regard. Other highlights include Felipe Galvez’s The Settlers, and The Omen, the directorial debut from director Baloji Tshiani.

Cannes has already announced two major Hollywood productions that will premiere on the Croisette: James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth entry in the archaeologist adventure franchise starring Harrison Ford; and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, an Apple Originals drama, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. Last year, the blow-out premieres of Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis helped Cannes recapture its red carpet panache, and the festival will be hoping this year’s star-studded rollouts will have a similar impact. Frémaux said he wanted to put Killers of the Flower Moon in competition but that Scorsese turned him down.

Cannes regular Pedro Almodóvar will also return to the festival red carpet for the world premiere of his LGBTQ Western Strange Way of Life, an English-language short starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.

Jeanne du Barry, a French period drama directed by, and starring, Polisse and DNA director Mäiwenn, will open the 2023 festival on May 16. Mäiwenn plays Jeanne Vaubernier, a working-class woman who became the last official courtesan of French King Louis XV, played by Johnny Depp.

The selection is certain to raise a few eyebrows, given Depp’s recent, very public, legal spat with ex-wife Amber Heard. Mäiwenn is also in the spotlight, following the release of a police report that she is being sued by a French journalist for assault. Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of online investigative newspaper Mediapart, claims he was having dinner at a restaurant in Paris when the director attacked him: grabbing him violently by the hair and spitting in his face.

Two-time Cannes Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Triangle of Sadness) will head up this year’s Cannes competition jury. The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27.

The full lineup of the 76th Cannes Film Festival is below.

COMPETITION
Club Zero, Jessica Hausner
The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer
Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismaki
Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania
Asteroid City, Wes Anderson
Anatomie d’Une Chute, Justine Triet
Monster, Hiokazu Kore-eda
Il Sol dell’Avvenire, Nanni Moretti
La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher
L’Eté Dernier, Catherine Breillat
La Passion De Dodin Bouffant, Tran Anh Hung
About Dry Grasses, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
May December, Todd Haynes
Rapito, Marco Bellocchio
Firebrand, Karim Ainouz
The Old Oak, Ken Loach
*Banel et Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Perfect Days, Wim Wenders
Jeunesse, Wang Bing

OUT OF COMPETITION
Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese
Jeanne du Barry, Maïwenn
The Idol, Sam Levinson
Cobweb, Kim Jee-woon
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, James Mangold

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Omar La Fraise, Elias Belkeddar
Acide, Just Philippot
Kennedy, Anurag Kashyap

CANNES PREMIERE
Le Temps d’Aimer, Katell Quillevere
Kubi, Takeshi Kitano
Cerrar los Ojos, Victor Erice
Bonnar, Pierre et Marthe, Martin Provost

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Anselm, Wim Wenders
Occupied City, Steve McQueen
Man in Black, Wang Bing

UN CERTAIN REGARD
How to Have Sex, Molly Manning Walker
The Delinquents, Rodrigo Moreno
Simple Comme Sylvain, Monia Chokri
The Settlers, Felipe Galvez
The Mother of All Lies, Asmae El Moodier
The Buriti Flower, Joao Salaviza & Renee Nader
Goodbye Julia, Mohammed Kordofani
Omen, Baloji Thasiani
The Breaking Ice, Anthony Chen
Rosalie, Stéphanie Di Giusto
The New Boy, Warwick Thornton
If Only I Could Hibernate, Zoljargal Purevdash
Hopeless, Kim Chang-hoon
Rien à Perdre, Delphine Deloget
Les Meutes, Kamal Lazraq
Terrestrial Verses, Ali Asgari & Alireza Khatami
La Regne Animal, Thomas Cailley

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