Scarlett Johansson to star at Cannes as festival unveils line-up

Scarlett Johansson is set to star on-screen and behind the camera at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, organisers said on Thursday as they unveiled the line-up of films that will compete for honours on the French Riviera. Johansson will appear alongside Benicio Del Toro and Tom Hanks in Wes Anderson’s new movie “The Phoenician Scheme”, one of the films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or for best film.

She will also present her directorial debut “Eleanor the Great”, about an elderly woman coping with the death of her best friend, in the secondary “Un Certain Regard” competition. Organisers stressed they were serious about giving women filmmakers a platform at the world’s premier film festival, with pressure on its bosses to take a stand on gender equality and tackling abuse and harassment.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris, President Iris Knobloch said the festival was “attentive” to the recommendations of a hard-hitting parliamentary inquiry into #MeToo abuses which reported its findings on Wednesday. “(Women) are no longer asking for their place, they are taking it,” Knobloch said. “We are honoured to amplify their voices, to shine a light on incredible talent that broadens our view of the world,” she added.

Nevertheless, this year’s main competition was still male-dominated, with only six films from women directors among the roughly 20 announced by festival director Thierry Fremaux. A little-known French female director Amelie Bonnin was given the honour of opening the festival on May 13 with her debut feature “Leave One Day”.

“It’s the first time that a debut film will open the Cannes Festival,” Fremaux said. The main competition this year includes some heavy-hitting festival circuit favourites including Anderson, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the Dardenne brothers from Belgium, and veteran American independent filmmaker Richard Linklater.

Other directors in-competition include American horror newcomer Ari Aster, who has cast Joaquin Phoenix in his “Eddington”, and compatriot Kelly Reichardt who will premiere her heist drama “The Mastermind” featuring John Magaro. Cedric Klapisch, 2021 Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, and Hafsia Herzi form a trio of top French contenders looking to emulate the success of last year’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora” by Sean Baker.

French screen legend Juliette Binoche will chair the jury, taking over from American counterpart Greta Gerwig.

Robert De Niro will also be on the Riviera to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, while Tom Cruise will make a splash with the world premiere of the latest and last instalment in the “Mission: Impossible”. In the documentary section, the eye-catching entries include a film about U2 frontman Bono, “Bono: Stories of Surrender”, and another by Haitian director Raoul Peck about British writer George Orwell, entitled “Orwell”.

Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser will showcase their latest film “Once Upon a Time In Gaza”, a tale of murder and friendship set in the war-torn territory, in the “Un Certain Regard” section. The build-up to Thursday’s news conference was dominated by discussion of the French parliamentary inquiry into the entertainment industry.

MPs concluded that “moral and sexual violence in the cultural sector is systemic, endemic, and persistent”, according to the inquiry’s chairwoman, Sandrine Rousseau, after six months of testimony from actors, agents and directors.

“The Cannes Film Festival must be the place where this shift in mindset happens; the place where we say loud and clear... amid the glitter and the red carpets... that finally, we all want things to change: every one of us, at every level of the industry,” she told reporters on Wednesday.

The opening day of Cannes on May 13 is also set to coincide with the verdict in the first sexual assault trial of French film legend Gerard Depardieu, which gripped the country last month. Depardieu, a tarnished hero of French cinema, is the highest-profile figure to face criminal charges in France’s response to the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to speak out against abuse. He is accused of having assaulted two women on the set of a film in 2021. He denies the allegations.

Agence France-Presse