Cannes Film Festival Unveils Star-Studded Lineup for 68th Edition

New films from Woody Allen, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant and Natalie Portman along with Pixar's 'Inside Out' are set for the Croisette.

At a packed Paris press conference on Thursday morning, Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure unveiled a star-studded lineup for the festival’s 68th edition.

Among the competition titles: Gus Van Sant's Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts; 1950’s romantic drama Carol by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; Denis Villeneuve's cartel thriller Sicario with Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt; Cannes regular Nanni Moretti's autobiographical drama Mia madre, which co-stars John Turturro and opens Thursday in Italy; and fellow Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino's second foray into English-language filmmaking, Youth, starring Rachel Weisz and Michael Caine.

Adding more star power, the festival will have out of competition screenings for the likes of Woody Allen's campus-set romantic dramedy Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and Pete Docter’s Pixar animated comedy Inside Out, as well as a special screening of Natalie Portman's A Tale of Love and Darkness. Allen has already premiered a dozen films on the Croisette, with Midnight in Paris kicking off the fest back in 2011, while Docter came to Cannes in 2009 with Up as the opening night selection.

Alongside the films by Haynes and Van Sant, the New York-set Louder Than Bombs by Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st) will bring more U.S. talent to the Croisette, with a cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Ryan and Rachel Brosnahan. And Aussie director Justin Kurzel – whose serial killer saga The Snowtown Murders played the Critics’ Week in 2011 – will debut in competition with a new adaptation of Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.

One of the first films announced Thursday was director Asif Kapadia's documentary on late singer Amy Winehouse, which will get a midnight screening. Kapadia previously made the award-winning Formula One doc, Senna, and will premiere Amy in Cannes before it gets a stateside release from A24.

Another returning filmmaker is Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne, who will screen the animated children’s tale The Little Prince, adapted from the famous book by Saint-Exupery and voiced by Rachel McAdams, James Franco and Cotillard. At the press conference, Fremaux remarked that the film offered up a new twist on the classic story, while proudly adding that author Saint-Exupery was from his hometown of Lyons.

Before Thursday, Fremaux had already announced two titles in the lineup. One is George Miller’s highly anticipated fourth installment to the trilogy that made Mel Gibson famous, Mad Max: Fury Road, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, which Warner Bros. will begin rolling out worldwide the day it premieres at the festival in an out-of-competition slot. The other one is opening night pick Standing Tall (La Tete haute) by French actress-director Emmanuelle Bercot, which is a coming-of-age tale following a decade in the life of a problematic young man, with Catherine Deneuve playing a local judge. (Deneuve starred in Bercot’s On My Way, which was released in 2013 by Cohen Media Group.)

This is the first time a female-directed film has played opening night in Cannes since 1987, when Diane Kurys premiered her English-language romance A Man in Love in the same slot. As if to respond to recent criticism of its male-centric lineup, Cannes announced a new “Women in Motion” initiative alongside corporate partner Kering, with a series of conferences and events scheduled to take place at this year’s festival, and prizes to be handed out to women filmmakers starting in 2016.

Cannes usually allots three competition slots to French filmmakers, though this year there are four, with two of them given to directors who have competed before: Femme auteur Maiwenn, who won the Jury Prize in 2011 for Polisse, will screen her marriage chronicle Mon roi, starring Vincent Cassel, Bercot and Louis Garrel, while A Prophet director Jacques Audiard will return with the gritty street saga Dheepan, about a Tamil refugee who finds himself in the tough suburbs of Paris. Writer-director Stephane Brize will play competition for the first time with The Measure of Man (La loi du marche), with Vincent Lindon, a regular in his films, starring as an unemployed 50-year-old man who finds a job as a supermarket security guard and then faces a major moral dilemma. And Valerie Donzelli, who broke out at the Critics' Week in 2011 with Declaration of War, will present her romance Marguerite and Julien, starring Anais Demoustier and co-writer Jeremie Elkaim, and based on an unproduced screenplay written for Francois Truffaut.

One French title conspicuously absent from competition is Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Years, which is already scheduled for local release on May 20. When asked about this during the press conference, Fremaux said that there were still a few slots left, offering up the possibility that the film could still be included in competition. But he added that Desplechin had already competed several times in previous years – most recently in 2013 with Jimmy P, starring Del Toro – and that this year’s selection was making way for new French talent, with Brize and Donzelli entering the competition for the first time.

Three Italian directors were tipped to appear in the lineup this year, and all have been included in competition, marking a strong Croisette presence of new films from the Boot. Palme d’Or laureate Nanni Moretti will screen his autobiographical drama Mia madre, which opens theatrically today in Italy; Paolo Sorrentino will premiere Youth, with an all-star cast including Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda and Harvey Keitel; and Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone will debut A Tale of Tales, starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and John C. Reilly.

Asian titles this year are represented by three auteurs returning to competition: Chinese director Jia Zhangke – whose A Touch of Sin won the screenplay award in 2013 – will screen his generation-spanning drama, Mountains May Depart; 2013 Jury Prize recipient Hirokazu Koreeda will premiere Our Little Sister, adapted from the manga by Akimi Yoshida; and Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien will screen The Assassin – his first feature to show in Cannes since 2007’s Flight of the Red Balloon. There were rumors that Hou’s foray into martial arts filmmaking would not be ready in time, and Fremaux confirmed that the director was working up to the last minute to get his cut in.

The strong Asian presence is confirmed in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, with two new works from India – Fly Away Solo by Neeraj Ghawyan and Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Route) by Gurvinder Singh – showing alongside Japanese auteur Kyoshi Kurosawa’s Journey to the Shore and Korean director Seung-Uk Oh’s The Shameless. Speaking about the two Indian movies, Fremaux added that they come neither from Bollywood nor the classic tradition, but rather from a new wave of local filmmaking that has appeared in recent years.

While films by both Stephen Frears and Ben Wheatley were tipped to appear in competition, there are no British directors currently slated to play the Croisette, though additional titles can still be added in the next few weeks. There is however a UK production, with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (who won the Un Certain Regard prize in 2009 for the Oscar-nominated Dogtooth) screening The Lobster in competition. Commenting on the film, which stars Colin Farrell, Lea Seydoux and Rachel Weisz, Fremaux quipped that it comes from “the tradition of those films where one is not meant to understand everything that happens.”

Fremaux said that the films unveiled Thursday amount to 90 percent of the final lineup, adding that the selection was taking risks. Overall, selectors screened 1,854 films this year, he said. He also argued that it was not "always the same people in the festival," adding: "It's not easy to find the new auteurs." Eight first films are part of the lineup this year, he highlighted, including Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes’ Holocaust drama, Son of Saul – which Fremaux boasted will be screened in competition on 35mm (the format it was shot in). Fremaux added that Nemes previously worked as an assistant director to Bela Tarr.

There are several first-time directors showing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, as well as returning filmmakers who have played Cannes in previous years. Romanian auteur Cornelieu Porumboiu, who won the section’s jury prize in 2009 with Police, Adjective, will premiere his latest work, The Treasure. French director Alice Winocour will screen her homefront drama, Maryland, after premiering her debut feature Augustine in the Critics’ Week in 2012. The film stars Diane Kruger and Matthias Schoenaerts, and marks the fourth feature by a female French director – after works by Maiwenn, Donzelli and Bercot – to be included in the official lineup this year. The U.S. presence in Un Certain Regard will be represented by Roberto Minervini, who showed Stop the Pounding Heart as a special screening two years ago.

As previously announced, Joel and Ethan Coen will chair the Cannes festival jury this year. Isabella Rossellini was recently announced as the president of the Un Certain Regard jury. Lescure opened the press conference by touting the festival's partners and saying he was "happy as a child" that the Coens were leading the jury. He then showed a short made by the Coens entitled World Cinema, which played Cannes in 2007 as part of the omnibus movie To Each His Own Cinema. The short, which stars Josh Brolin as a Texas cowboy sampling an art-house theater for the first time, drew plenty of laughs at the press conference.

While the majority of competition and non-competition titles are being divulged Thursday morning, additional films will be added to the lineup in the coming two weeks. This has also been the case in previous years, with Fremaux leaving a few slots open for late arrivals. He hinted at the possibility of an additional French film, stating that he could have picked seven of them for the main competition.

"The selection process is a journey that takes us around the world," Fremaux said. "And we often come back with surprises that we could have never pictured showing."

Speculation has abounded in recent weeks about which films will ultimately vie for the fest’s coveted Palme d’Or prize this year. In 2014, Winter Sleep, directed by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the top festival honor. Fremaux and his team played their cards especially close this year, with many directors, producers and sales agents waiting until the last minute learn which movies were chosen.

Lescure is serving his first year after Gilles Jacob stepped down in 2014. The festival this year runs May 13-May 24 on the Croisette.

Here is the full lineup:

Opening Film

Standing Tall (La Tete Haute), Emmanuelle Bercot

Competition

Carol, Todd Haynes

Macbeth, Justin Kurzel

Dheepan, Jacques Audiard

The Measure of Man, Stephane Brize

Marguerite and Julien, Valerie Donzelli

The Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone

The Assassin, Hou Hsiao Hsien

Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke

Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Koreeda

The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos

Mon roi, Maiwenn

Mia Madre, Nanni Moretti

Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes

Youth, Paulo Sorrentino

Louder Than Bombs, Joachim Trier

Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant

Sicario, Denis Villeneuve

Out of Competition

Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller

Inside Out, Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen

Irrational Man, Woody Allen

The Little Prince, Mark Osborne

Special Screenings

A Tale of Love and Darkness, Natalie Portman

Asphalte, Samuel Benchetrit

Panama, Pavle Vuckovic

Amnesia, Barbet Schroeder

Hayored Lema’Ala, Elad Keidan

Oka, Souleymane Cisse

Midnight Screenings

Amy, Asif Kapadia

Office, Hong Won-Chan

Un Certain Regard

Madonna, Shin Suwon

Maryland, Anna Winocour

The Fourth Direction, Gurvinder Singh

Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan

Hruter (Rams), Grimur Hakonarson

Kishibe No Tabi (Journey to the Shore), Kiyoshi

Je Suis Un Soldat (I Am a Soldier), Laurent Larivere

Zvizdan (The High Sun), Dalibor Matanic

The Other Side, Roberto Minervini

One Floor Below, Radu Muntean

Shameless, Oh Seung-Uk

The Chosen Ones, David Pablos

Nahid, Ida Panahandeh

The Treasure, Corneliu Porumboiu