The organizers of the 77th Cannes Film Festival have announced this year’s selection. The Festival runs from May 14th to 25th.
In the Official Competition 19 feature films are competing for the Palme d’Or, with 12 European directors, including the Italian Paolo Sorrentino with his new film Parthenope and the Greek Yorgos Lanthimos with Kinds of Kindness. There are 4 film-makers from North America, 2 from Asia and one from South America. This year Africa is absent from this prestigious competition.
The Cannes Première category returns for its fourth year with 6 films. The choice includes the highly anticipated Everybody Loves Touda by Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch. The central character, Touda, is a traditional Moroccan singer, a Sheikha. Every evening in the bars of her small provincial town she sings well-known songs of resistance, love and emancipation, without shame or censorship, watched hungrily by men. But she dreams of a better future for her son and herself. Abused, humiliated, she leaves everything for the bright lights of Casablanca.
In the Special Sessions category director Yolande Zauberman (M, Would You Have Sex With an Arab, Classified People) presents her new documentary, La Belle de Gaza which follows Palestinian trans women fleeing Gaza for Tel Aviv.
Sources: Festival de Cannes, Cineuropa
