The 71th Festival de Cannes Opens Its Doors Tomorrow

Tomorrow, May 8, the most prestigious red carpet in Europe will roll out for the 71th Festival de Cannes. For almost two weeks La Croisette will turn into a sparkling mix of stars, celebrities and film critics.

This year 21 films will enter The Competition to win the prestigious Palme d'Or. The Jury will be headed by Australian actress and producer Cate Blanchett.

The opening film is the double Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows (Todos Lo Saben) starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The film tells about a couple who returns to Spain after their long life in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For director family relations is a perfect ground for a psychological thriller spiced with a Spanish passion.

The Competition also features a well-known director Spike Lee who comes back to Cannes after a twenty-year break with his BlackKkKlansman. 87 year old Jean Lucas Godard will also compete with his newest creation The Image Book (Le Livre d'Image). You can find a complete list of Festival Selection here.

Out of Competition list is supplemented with the controversial Danish director Lars von Trier. This time the famous enfant terrible presents his new film The House That Jack Built, which explores psychology of a serial killer. This is the first time after 2011 that von Trier is invited to Cannes calling off his status of persona non grata after he expressed his sympathies to Hitler during a press conference.

The House That Jack Built will be shown together with another two new releases: Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story and Gilles Lellouche's Sink Or Swim.

There's still an uncertainty about the Festival's closing film, which must be resolved today. On April 25, Paulo Branco and his production company Alfama Films took legal action aimed at preventing the planned screening of Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote on Saturday, May 19 at the closing event of the 2018 Festival de Cannes. As stated in the press release, "The Festival de Cannes will respect the legal decision, whatever it may be, but we strongly affirm that we stand squarely on the side of filmmakers and in particular on the side of Terry Gilliam." Lets hope the court will be favorable to Terry Gilliam and the audience of the Festival.